The Washington Post is reporting on what seems to be a truly heinous crime.
When a teammate held out his arms after football practice in their high school locker-room, the boy thought he was about to get a hug.
Instead, he got viciously raped, authorities say.
As the teammate restrained the boy, another football player allegedly thrust a coat hanger into the boy’s rectum. Then a third teammate kicked the coat hanger several times, according to a criminal complaint.
According to the post, this incident took place in October of last year, at Dietrich High School in Idaho. The family of alleged victim have filed a $10 million lawsuit against the school, claiming that this terrible incident was the result of months of racist bullying and condoned harassment of the young man.
The boy “was taunted and called racist names by other members of the team which names included ‘Kool-Aid’ ‘chicken eater’ ‘watermelon’ and [the N-word],” the suit alleges.
The civil complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Idaho also claims that one of the students charged with sexual assault displayed a Confederate flag and demanded the boy recite a racist song titled “Notorious KKK.”
There are accusations in the lawsuit that even before this event, coaches encouraged other students to fight the boy—resulting in a situation where the boy was knocked unconscious. What is exactly true here is still unclear, but there is enough evidence that the Idaho Attorney General’s office filed sexual assault charges against all three suspected attackers.
“Mr. Howard is a large and aggressive male who had been sent to live with his relatives in Idaho due to his inability to keep out of trouble in Texas,” the complaint says. “Mr. Howard is a relative of prominent individuals in the community and, at least in part due to his athletic ability and community connections, the Defendants ignored or were deliberately indifferent to the behavior of Mr. Howard which included aggression, taunting and bullying of The Plaintiff and other students in the District. With deliberate indifference, the Defendants did nothing to curb the vicious acts of Mr. Howard who brought with him from Texas a culture of racial hatred towards the Plaintiff.”
According to the lawsuit, it is Howard that instigated much of the racist behaviors.