EXCLUSIVE: New Rochelle 7th Grader Speaks Of Alleged Football Hazing
NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- It's a child's disturbing story of being terrorized at school. The seventh grader described a series of alleged hazing incidents that left him bruised. And members of his middle school football team are the ones accused in the violent confrontations.
The child is 12 years old. His identity is being withheld although his tormentors already know who he is.
The seventh grader at Isaac E. Young Middle School in New Rochelle told CBS 2's Lou Young about the recent football team hazing that left him bruised and shaken.
"They pulled my shirt up and then just pulled my nipple," the boy said, adding when asked about the bruises on his arms, "That was from other times."
Eighth graders on the team, he said, preyed on the younger kids in an unsupervised locker room. He called it an initiation.
12-year-old: "My teammates got me in the corner and punched and then started humping me."
Young: "In a sexual way?"
12-year-old: "Yes."
Young: "You knew that?"
12-year-old: "Yes."
Young: "How did that make you feel?"
12-year-old: "Nasty and disgusted."
Police have dismissed the incidents as locker room towel snapping and the school district told Young the principal's decision to cancel the final three games of the football season after receiving a complaint was an appropriate response.
The boy's mother, however, said all they've really done is make her son a pariah.
"I don't think they're taking it seriously enough. I don't think my son is safe where he is right now," the mother said.
"They called me a snitch and said your mom's a snitch. Nobody likes you, all those things," the boy said, later admitting that he was, indeed, being bullied.
Until CBS 2's report on this hazing incident on Wednesday, the boy's mother said she was never aware the police were contacted at all and plans to have her own discussion with New Rochelle police detectives.
The child told Young football players would routinely chant the phrase "Welcome to the Jungle," a reference to the song by rock group Guns 'n Roses, during the alleged hazing incidents.
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