A quartet of high school football players from the Cleveland suburbs now have their futures very much in question after they were charged with rape, sexual battery and hazing, among other counts.
Berea-Midpark (Ohio) High School senior Jabriel Williams and three teammates who still qualified as juveniles were charged in connection with hazing attacks on teammates during a team camp at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Per the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the assaults reportedly occurred on June 10 in Case Western’s Hitchcock House dormitories.
A preliminary internal investigation into the case found, “a number” of students involved in the acts of rape and hazing, with students who weren’t participating witnessing the incident nearby.
As for the Berea City School District, their approach was notably measured.
“Appropriate athletic and academic consequences will be handed out by the administration as deemed appropriate,” Berea City School Superintendent Tracy Wheeler wrote in an email to the Plain Dealer. “Students who were involved have been and will be given consequences from the school district; we cannot discuss those consequences with anyone other than the student and his parents.”
While there have been no formal number of victims released, prosecutors in Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court said they have evidence that “multiple victims” were targeted in the assault.
