Police report details assault in Putnam City locker room
Four Putnam City High football players accused of holding and penetrating another player with the broken end of a broom handle told police it was a tradition that had been passed down from “class to class.”
The players, who range in age from 15 to 18, confessed verbally and in writing to participating in the assault, according to a Putnam City Schools police report.
“Upperclassmen will use a broomstick to haze underclassmen,” one of the suspects told police. “It is referred to as ‘Brooming.’”
The 14-year-old victim told Campus Police Chief Mark Stout he was clothed during the assault.
“It hurt really bad,” the victim said, according to the report.
Stout, addressing the media Thursday, said the suspects could possibly be criminally charged as adults.
“We’re talking about a very serious felony crime, rape by instrumentation,” he said. “I think the word ‘rape’ is pretty intense in itself.”
Stout said he plans to meet with the Oklahoma County district attorney’s office on Monday.
The assault occurred Sept. 28 inside the school’s football locker room, according to the report by campus police.
One of the suspects told an investigator he went to the freshman locker room to “mess with all of the freshmen and that he started messing with the victim.”
The suspect said he started “messing with the victim ... cause he’s a wrestler and he knew he could take more than the others,” the report states.
The suspect and a second student carried the boy to the varsity locker room where the assault took place, the report states.
A third suspect told police that he and the others were “messing around with the (victim) and then picked him up and held him still and then (a fourth suspect) shoved the broomstick up his rear end and then we put him down,” the report states.
One suspect told police the “stick” has been going around for a long time while a second suspect said he heard stories about a broomstick when he was a freshman and how the seniors would “prank underclassmen with it.”
A student who witnessed the assault notified an adult who reported it to the school by email the same night.
An investigation was launched the next day.
An unidentified school district employee was suspended with pay in connection with the incident.
Reached Thursday by phone, football coach Corey Russell declined to discuss the incident.
“I’ve been told not to comment,” Russell said.
Stout said it’s the first time campus police have heard any report of a hazing incident, adding that district administrators are looking into past “brooming” incidents.
Putnam City Schools spokesman Steve Lindley said the district is instituting a new locker room policy.
“We’re putting out the word now that all schools need to have someone in the locker room at all times when students are there,” he said. “That’s not been the practice in the past to have an adult present when students are changing clothes, but that has to change.”
Lindley said the district is also working to establish a task force that will look at the issue of supervision in locker rooms and “cultures around the athletic programs.”
Lindley declined to comment on any disciplinary action the suspects have received or may face.
It’s not the first case of athletes assaulting teammates making the news.
In January 2016, two Norman North High School wrestlers, ages 16 and 12, reported being sexually assaulted on a bus on the way back from a wrestling tournament in Pauls Valley.
Four wrestlers were charged the following month with rape by instrumentation. Garvin County prosecutors alleged the attackers used their fingers in the assaults.
One pleaded no contest to lesser offenses, two misdemeanor counts of assault and battery, and was given six months’ probation.
Three others had their cases dismissed.
In Tulsa, four former Bixby High School football players were charged with sexually assaulting a teammate.
The 16-year-old victim told investigators he was assaulted with a pool cue during a team dinner in September 2017 at the home of the school district’s former superintendent.