Federal lawsuit claims Reed-Custer school officials were aware of abuse, hazing culture

A federal lawsuit claims Reed-Custer Unit School District 255 officials turned a blind eye toward a culture of bullying, hazing and sexual abuse that tormented and injured a young aspiring football player.

On Wednesday, the parents of a football player filed a lawsuit against the school district and several officials after he suffered hazing, bullying and a “vicious sexual assault” last year, according to the suit.

Between May 2017 and November, the player was an incoming freshman student at Reed-Custer High School in Braidwood, according to the lawsuit.

During summer 2017, he attended a football camp at the high school. On July 19, 2017, the freshman was allegedly attacked by other football players and sexually assaulted by one of them. The incident, among others, caused him to suffer depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

During the camp, he experienced bullying, harassment and sexual abuse from other football players, according to the suit. The freshman and his parents allege school officials were aware or tacitly acknowledged a “culture of abuse, hazing, bullying and assault” that resulted in significant injury to him.

The lawsuit said Reed-Custer principal Tim Ricketts and athletic director Chuck Anderson turned a blind eye to the abuse even after it was reported.

“These assaults were part of a prevalent hazing ritual known to defendants long before the dates of plaintiff’s assault,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit said before the freshman was hazed, school officials took no action to end and tacitly sanctioned, the custom, tradition, or practice of engaging in hazing of a sexual nature.

A message to Reed-Custer superintendent Mark Mitchell and Ricketts was not immediately returned Thursday.

The lawsuit said that during a pre-game pep talk, Mark Wolf, the school’s head varsity football coach, encouraged players to “unleash their inner rapist” or “rip off” the genitals of the opposing team.

In one incident, two football players, who are not named, allegedly verbally bullied and harassed the player by threatening to have sex or rape his mother and older sister.

When the freshman had told them to stop, the football players said “they intended to have sex with and/or rape his mother and sister while they held (him) down and forced (him) to watch,” according to the lawsuit.

Reed-Custer is in the same athletic football conference as Streator, Sandwich, and formerly Seneca.