By Michael E. Miller, washingtonpost.com
When a teammate held out his arms after football practice in their high school locker room, the student thought he was about to get a hug.
Instead, he was viciously assaulted, authorities say.
As the teammate restrained the victim, another football player allegedly thrust a coat hanger into the victim’s rectum, according to a criminal complaint. Then a third teammate kicked the coat hanger several times.
The Oct. 23, 2015, incident has rocked the tiny town of Dietrich, Idaho. This spring, after several months of investigation, the state attorney general’s office filed sexual assault charges against the three. Two of the teenagers are being charged as adults and could face life in prison, under Idaho law.
Earlier this month, the victim’s family filed a $10 million lawsuit against Dietrich High School. According to the lawsuit, the attack wasn’t a one-off, but rather the culmination of months of racist abuse by white students against the victim, who is black.
The victim “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 victim recite a racist song titled “Notorious KKK.”
All three of the attackers were white, the suit says.
The suit, which names the 18-year-old victim, was provided to The Washington Post by his attorney. However, The Post generally does not name victims of sexual assault.
In addition to Dietrich High School, the lawsuit also names 11 employees as defendants. It claims school administrators and coaches did nothing to stop the racial and physical abuse toward the victim, who was especially vulnerable due to “mental disorders including learning disabilities.”
The suit claims that Dietrich football coaches encouraged other players to fight the victim, allowing a much larger student to knock him unconscious as other students shouted “catcalls, taunts and racial epithets.”
Dietrich High School did not respond to a request for comment.
Read more at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/05/25/white-high-school-football-players-in-idaho-charged-with-raping-black-disabled-teammate-with-a-coat-hanger/?tid=ss_mail-amp
