This is truly one of the most awful articles. How do kids get to this point? I know there are worse things going on out there, but good Lord... this is just sad.
02:09 AM CDT on Saturday, July 19, 2008
By MATTHEW HAAG / The Dallas Morning News
mhaag@dallasnews.com
Seventh-grade boys at Sunnyvale Middle School feared going to first-period PE class. They knew what might await them: Vicious sexual attacks by older eighth-grade students.
Throughout much of last school year, a pack of eighth-graders repeatedly threatened to sexually attack the younger students before and after class.
"They would say, 'I'm going to get you on Monday,' " recalled a 13-year-old seventh-grader, who told The Dallas Morning News that he witnessed the attacks almost daily. " 'We are going to rape you.' "
The Dallas County Sheriff's Department has concluded its investigation and has recommended that the Dallas County district attorney's office prosecute five eighth-grade boys for aggravated sexual assault and/or indecency, according to Kim Leach, a Sheriff's Department spokeswoman.
Ms. Leach declined to answer questions about the exact nature of the sexual attacks.
Whatever the facts, Sunnyvale ISD already has reacted to the case. Starting this fall, students will be required to take a "values-based" class to help them make good choices. And the athletic locker room will be reconfigured so coaches will always be able to see across the room at all angles.
The seventh-grade boy who said he witnessed the attacks agreed to tell his story to The News but didn't want his name used because he fears retaliation.
He said the eighth-grade assailants usually backed up their threats with attacks in the athletic locker room. Coaches were out of sight. And the perpetrators' friends would build a human wall around the attacks – sometimes up to 16 people in length – to prevent anyone from watching or intervening.
Sunnyvale ISD Superintendent Doug Williams verified the seventh-grader's account of the events. The boy also said he spoke with sheriff's investigators twice to tell his story.
More and more violent
The seventh-grade boy said the attacks became more vicious as the year progressed.
At the beginning of the football season – around early September – older students jokingly humped each other. The older boys wore gym shorts and got into piles of eight to 10 students on a locker room bench, he said.
They moaned and laughed.
"I was like, 'What are they doing?' " the seventh-grader said. "I just thought they were sick or something."
But as the older boys noticed the younger students standing in bewilderment and laughing, they started to target the younger seventh-graders. The attacks began a few weeks before winter break in December, the 13-year-old recalled.
"At first, they were just grabbing people and holding them down, but it got more intense," the boy said.
The attacks seemed well organized and followed the same pattern, he said.
The perpetrators waited for the younger students to be facing their lockers. The older boys would run up behind their victims, tackle them to the ground and pin their arms and legs to the floor, the 13-year-old said.
Other students hid in their lockers.
"They'd say, 'Look what I got,' " the boy recalled the attackers saying.
As the victims usually kicked and screamed, the attackers tried to strip off their gym shorts.
The usual leader of the attacks, a muscular eighth-grader, would slide his fist in a foot-long, hard plastic cone and try to sodomize some of the younger boys, the seventh-grader said. All of the victims of attacks that he witnessed were still wearing their gym shorts, he said.
The attackers moaned as they pinned the younger boys, he said.
"They got the kids that they knew would never say anything," the boy said.
The boy, who is big for his age, said the attackers once targeted him. He fought them off and they left him alone when a coach approached.
Several weaker and smaller seventh-graders were constantly targeted, he said.
Coaches sat in their office about 20 feet away. But they were not close enough to hear screams for help, the boy said. And if a coach seemed near, at least two lookout people yelled, "Coach!" and the attacks stopped immediately.
The last attack occurred in early April, he said.
Internal inquiry
Most of the victims and witnesses were too embarrassed or scared to tell anyone what they saw, the boy said. But in late March, his friends finally decided to tell their parents. The parents then informed the school district.
Principal Diana Freeman led the school's initial inquiry into the attacks. Her investigation concluded that nothing beyond bullying took place, said Mr. Williams, the Sunnyvale ISD superintendent.
"We tried to be as proactive as possible to stop these things when we heard about them," he said.
Law officers didn't learn of the attacks until early May when several Sunnyvale residents pleaded with the Sheriff's Department to look into the case. The residents said they knew something far more severe than bullying had occurred.
The sheriff's investigation concluded this week with the recommendations for prosecution. The next step, if it comes, will be the filing of charges by the district attorney's office.
The school's earlier internal investigation didn't square with the serious findings of the sheriff's probe because students had not been forthcoming with what they knew and witnessed, Mr. Williams said.
Growing district
Sunnyvale, a semi-rural community of 4,000 people, sits between Garland and Mesquite next to Lake Ray Hubbard. The middle school, with its gleaming white stone facade, is two years old. And a new high school is under construction for older students who, traditionally, have attended nearby Mesquite schools.
Sunnyvale ISD is developing and growing to serve its middle-class and upper-middle-class homeowners.
"It is flat upsetting both as a parent and as a school official that things like this could happen," Mr. Williams said.
A decision about the future of the eighth-grade boys wouldn't be made until criminal charges are filed or rejected, Mr. Williams said. If charges are filed, the boys could be sent to a juvenile justice alternative education program.
Coaches suspended some of the alleged attackers from athletics in April, but a few were back practicing football this summer at the school. Mr. Williams said coaches and personnel were watching the boys closely.
The seventh-grade boy who watched the daily attacks hopes Sunnyvale ISD officials bar the alleged perpetrators from returning to school. His voice shook and he fidgeted with his left hand as he described the repeated attacks on his friends.
"I don't want them to get off easily," the boy said.
