Tallmadge High School latest to see serious charges in football hazing
October 5th, 2007
TALLMADGE — Call it a prank, initiation, or even hazing. But police are calling what happened to a student at Tallmadge High School a criminal act.
And two of his fellow students on the football team are facing serious charges.
“They were just messing around and held him down. I guess or something or another,” says Tallmadge student Jeff Chambliss.
Tallmadge police aren’t saying much about what exactly happened during the hazing, but they did charge one student with rape, the other with attempted rape.
Police say it happened in August, just as the football season was kicking off. But students say no one really knew about the incident until the senior running back and junior offensive lineman were pulled out of class and booked on charges Wednesday morning.
“[I'm] kind of sad about that, I didn’t think that any of them were capable of being like that,” says Tallmadge student Samantha Coon.
Not only had students not heard of the incident, many of them weren’t aware the Blue Devil’s sport teams did any hazing.
“I know back in Springfield where I used to go it happened a lot. But not here, not in Tallmadge,” says Devin Crawford.
The two juveniles were scheduled to appear before a judge sometime Thursday. They are being held at the Summit County juvenile detention facility until the outcome of that hearing.
Moderator's note: As moderator, I'll publish all relevant news stories, letters from activists, pro-hazing letters, and opinion pieces. Although hazing in fraternities, high schools, bands, camp, the military and overseas groups is a hot-button issue, civility is expected. If a letter needs editing for grammar or clarity, I'll edit and return for the letter writer's approval if an email address is attached. BIO: Hank Nuwer is the editor of The Hazing Reader (Indiana University Press) and High School Hazing (Grolier/Scholastic). My website is http://hazing.hanknuwer.com.
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