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Loading ...Teens charged in football team sodomy hazing
10.31.2008 8:10am EDT
(Las Vegas, New Mexico) Six youths were charged with conspiracy and other crimes stemming from a hazing case at a high school football camp in which young players were allegedly sodomized with broomsticks.
District Attorney Henry Valdez announced the Children’s Court charges Wednesday and said he would decide within 10 days whether to seek adult sanctions against the youths.The charges stem from allegations of sexual assault on younger players by older players at the Robertson High School camp Aug. 11-14. A state police report said younger players were told to “take it like a man” and that their attackers ignored their pleas to stop.
The community is east of Santa Fe.
One football player was expelled and five others were suspended from school for the rest of the year. Those six were never publicly identified and it was not clear if they were the same six youths charged Wednesday.
Head football coach Ray Woods and six assistants resigned in September amid allegations that coaches had failed to adequately supervise the players or follow up on initial hazing allegations.
The football team had won the state championship twice in recent years, and the case shocked residents and turned student against student in Las Vegas, a town of 14,000.
One of the six youths charged, Santiago Armijo, told the Albuquerque Journal that he is innocent.
“I’m just hoping the real story comes out,” he said. “If there’s anything I could have done differently, I would have stopped it. But I didn’t do what they think I did.”
The school district, in its own investigation of the hazing, criticized coaches for calling all the players together and questioning them in front of their peers once the staff became aware of the alleged cases.
Once again we see the results of adults failing to realize that anti-bullying policies need to be in place and enforced with zero tolerance. The failure of the adults to make these decisions years ago lead to these incidents. Believing and accepting that “kids are going to bully other kids” needs to become a thing of the past but until adults step up do their job, such incidents will continue to be perpetrated against younger and weaker children. Instead of dealing with a bully, now some young men have to deal with the emotional trauma, and psychological problems associated with being “raped” by their peers and others knowing about it. Since when, in straight macho culture, did being a “man”, start requiring the taking of something “hard” up one’s buttocks? Thankfully, I missed P.E. the day they taught that lesson.
There they go again. When did sodomy become a synonym for sexual assault?
it’s a synonym when the catcher isn’t a willing party, but you’re right; the word sodomy shouldnt be used as a description of charges. This all boils down to people not being willing to take responsibility for raising violent monsters instead of open minded children. Just like the gay school proposed in chicago-weak. instead of making places for our children to hide, we should be making sure that all children are if not sensitive, at least terrified to violate others in school. Only then will the problem begin to ease.
Wow!! I find it fasinating that “straight” boys would tell team mates that they had to accept being raped with a broomstick up the rectum by “taking it like a man”!!!! OMG! My head almost exploded with the implacations of that statement!!I read it out to my girlfriend but she just growled over her coffee in that early morning “too early to think” grumble.Is it just me?Just seems very strange.
hmmmmmmmmmmm……..
Does it seem obvious to anyone else that a charismatic “leader” type amongst these boys was sexually abused? Or is an extreme example of what happens when a young gay man is forced to repress his natural desires and believes that consensual sodomy is evil, and therefore, so is he? That his desires alone make him so reprehensible that the only way he can manage the inner conflict is to become sexually violent with other males?
So many freakin’ problems caused by religious freaks imposing themselves into the lives of others whose actions have absolutely no effect on their lives one way or the other EXCEPT to produce conflicted young men who become monsters DUE TO THE RELIGIOUS FREAKS’ IMPOSITION.
If that young man had never gotten the message that sodomy was evil or psychologically detrimental or a form of physical punishment, as invoked by the religious freaks, then this and other sodomy as punishment rapes–remember the NY cops and the nightstick?–would simply not occur in this context.
Not to say rape itself would disappear…it wouldn’t. But “taking it like a man” as a social humiliation simply wouldn’t exist.
Isn’t religion wonderful?
Heterosexuals violently raping each other with broomsticks is considered OK, but a loving, nurturing gay-marriage is considered wrong…..
Um, Ok.
Somewhere people have SEVERELY lost touch with reality.
Just a sign of our society losing its knowledge of right from wrong starting with the kids. The kids are not be taught by their parents, relatives, teachers and other adults close to them right from wrong and do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
like not bullying and not violating by physical injury or physical abuse in any way, shape and form the persons of sepecially those not able to defend themselves.
What the heck? kids raping each others with broomsticks?? its a bit funny to imagine but in reality its horrible… AND IM SURE that someone along the line will say that homosexuality had something to do with this taking place. I’ll bet $50 on that!
I fail to see how this has anything to do with the GLBTI community?!
It’s an issue of gender and sexuality. Yes, it’s an issue of gender and sexuality in a power and dominance situation, but it’s still a topic of study for readers of a website about gender, sexuality, and society, in my opinion.
Just so you all know this has nothing to do with “represed homosexual feelings and emotions”. This is purely a sick and twisted group of teens who are physically violating and threatining other young, impressionable teens. If I was the parent to any of those boys who were violated I would be looking for blood.
I agree with you, nick. This is not about sexual desire, repressed or not. Rape is never about sexual desire or sexual orientation. Rape is the violent abuse of power. These older players were in a position of power and dominance (not matter how slight) over the younger players.