Nine High School Students Arrested After Athletes Were Allegedly Sodomized In Hazing Rituals

Nine male students at La Vernia High School (Texas) have been arrested in connection with allegations of sexual assault involving hazing in the boys’ sports programs, according to multiple reports.

The alleged assaults happened during the 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years, mostly in the football program, but also in basketball and baseball, according to the San Antonio Express-News. Seven juvenile students were arrested last Thursday, and two 18-year-old students were booked Monday on charges of sexually assaulting a child.

The Daily Beast acquired the affidavits for the two adult suspects, including an incident involving the football team from last November:

According to affidavits filed in the arrests of the two 18-year-olds, the men are accused of holding down a 16-year-old who was moving from Junior Varsity to Varsity football, and sexually assaulting the teen as part of an initiation in November 2016. The four involved players, who were at a home off-campus, allegedly shouted “Get him!” and held the 16-year-old victim face down on a bed while sodomizing him with the threaded end of a carbon-dioxide tank.

“The victim struggled to stop the assault, but was overpowered by the four suspects and pinned down where he could not move,” wrote La Vernia police Sgt. Donald Keil, in the affidavit.

San Antonio’s FOX 29 spoke to one of the victims’ mothers, who asked to be kept anonymous:

Kids were holding them down in the locker rooms, there was a lookout at the door watching for coaches not to come. They hold them down and stick various items up their rectum... including coke bottles, deodorant bottles, steel pipes, baseball bats and broom sticks.

“Every time we turn around, we find another suspect, more victims,” La Vernia Police Chief Bruce Ritchey told The Daily Beast. “We anticipate more arrests in the future.”