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Details of Hazing Civil Case allegations made public — Wilson (Buffalo area)

Link to Buffalo News

Excerpt:

The legal papers do not identify Wilson school officials by name, only referring to them as district “representatives.”

More detailed accusations about what happened on the bus ride — as well as what some school district officials knew about all the incidents and when — are contained in the papers, obtained by The Buffalo News through the Freedom of Information Act.

Among them:

• Four adults, including coaches, were on the bus at the time of the attack. Coaches were told about violent behavior before the April bus trip was over, as well as after the team arrived back in Wilson. The player who asked school personnel to intervene did so while standing beside one of the victims in a school parking lot — but no further action was taken.

• One of the victims was attacked on the team bus on the way back from a game in Albion five days later. He already was one of two students who had become specific targets of hazing and other violence by varsity players.

• A school official observed less severe incidents last year, then told the players to go back to their seats on the bus. For discipline, extra running was doled out at practice.

“The notice of claim speaks for itself,” said Terrence M. Connors, an attorney for the families of two alleged victims.

This year’s attack involved a varsity player sitting on the first victim’s chest to restrain him, while he was beaten and a cell phone was inserted into his rectum, the legal papers claim.

The second victim also was restrained, beaten and had “what felt like multiple fingers” inserted into his rectum, the papers said.

The player who was sodomized with the bat last year said he participated in this year’s attack “because things like that happened to me before,” according to the notice of claim.

He also admitted using a cell phone in this year’s sexual assault, the document claims.

It also claims the father of the victim- turned-attacker called a school representative after the baseball bat incident last year, and players were told to run extra laps at practice as discipline.

By Hank Nuwer

Journalist Hank Nuwer tracks hazing deaths in fraternities and schools. Nuwer is the Alaska author of Hazing: Destroying Young Lives; Broken Pledges: The Deadly Rite of Hazing, High School Hazing, Wrongs of Passage and The Hazing Reader. In April of 2024 and April 2025 , the Alaska Press Club awarded him first place in the Best Columnist division and Best Humorist, second place.

He has written articles or columns on hazing for the Sunday Times of India, Toronto Globe & Mail, Harper's Magazine, Orlando Sentinel, The Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. His current book is Hazing: Destroying Young Lives from Indiana University Press. He is married to Malgorzata Wroblewska Nuwer of Warsaw, Poland and Fairbanks, Alaska. Nuwer is a former columnist for the Greenville (Ohio)Early Bird and former managing editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in Alaska.
Nuwer was named the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists columnist of the year in 2021 for his “After Darke” column in the Early Bird. He also won third place for the column in 2022 from the Indiana chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He and his wife Gosia, recently of Union City, Ind., have owned 20 acres in Alaska for many years. “The move is a sort-of coming home for us,” said Nuwer. As a journalist, he’s written about the Alaskan Iditarod sled-dog race and other Alaska topics. Read his musings in his blog at Real Alaska Daily--http://realalaskadaily.com and in his weekly column "Far from Randolph" in the Winchester Star-Gazette of Randolph County, Indiana.

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