Teen Beaten By Clinton HS Football Players Speaks Out
CLINTON (CBS) -- Cody Riekstins says he avoids fights. And he says he's certainly never been attacked like this before - a beating so bad, he was knocked unconscious for hours, waking up in the hospital to a nurse telling him how lucky he was to be alive.
Twelve days later, he's still trying to put the pieces together. "It's like trying to remember a dream in the morning," explains the Assabet Valley Technical High School senior. "You just can't remember what happened, you know?"
A group of eight Clinton High School students stand charged with savagely beating the 18-year-old during a drinking party to celebrate Clinton football's super bowl win over Hudson High School.
The incident began at the house of former Town Selectman Mark Elworthy, whose son had allegedly thrown the party.
WBZ-TV Jim Armstrong reports.
Cody tells WBZ that the party was raging when he and his girlfriend stepped outside, having a disagreement over a text message. He says the argument wasn't serious, but apparently the guys from Clinton didn't like it.
Cody says he looked up, saw a group of guys running toward him, and everything went blurry.
Even today, Cody still has no idea how he wound up in the middle of a different street, five houses away from the party, where the suspects apparently left him for dead. He was there for about 15 minutes until a neighbor saw him and called police.
"Just the booze, you know?" says Riekstins. "You mix emotion with booze and you get a hell of an incident."
Cody says he was definitely drinking too, but did nothing to directly anger the guys who police say attacked him. Even if he had made someone angry, he says he never had the chance to explain himself before they were on top of him.
But as details come to light, Cody thinks the cops made a mistake with at least one of his alleged attackers. He says Clinton senior Tony Gizzonio may have tried to help him.
"The last thing I remember was Tony trying to push me away from all the kids, trying to tell the kids, it's good, you're fine, back off," says Cody. "Personally, I don't know why he's being arraigned right now."
Cody was back at the Clinton Police Department again this afternoon, answering questions and helping to sort through the mess.
A judge has ordered the young men accused of beating him up not to have any contact with him, and Cody's not even sure what he'd want to hear from them if he could.
"I mean, I'm sure they're sorry now that the heat's been brought on them," he says. "I hate to see anyone get in trouble."
