Posted on 04/13/2016 6:58:31 PM PDT by Gamecock
LEXINGTON COUNTY, SC
Two Lexington High School students have been charged with assaulting a freshman on the school’s wrestling team in a locker room.
Preston Edward Painter, 18, and Donald Hinson Lewis, 17, were charged last month with third-degree assault and battery, according to arrest warrants.
The two students were charged in March, and the victim’s father told The State newspaper Wednesday that the family intends to relocate because of the incident.
Witnesses told police that on March 10, one student struck the 14-year-old victim on the back with an open palm, and the other struck the victim on the back of a leg, according to an incident report from the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department. The incident occurred as team members were returning to the locker room after a workout.
A witness told the Lexington High School resource officer that the assault caused the freshman to bend over in pain and to almost fall to the ground, the report said. The freshman was “visibly upset” and began crying.
Painter told the school resource officer and an assistant principal that he struck the victim on a leg, but not hard enough to leave a bruise, according to the incident report. He also said that “five stars” – open handed slaps – are games the wrestlers play with each other in the locker room, the report says. He said all of the wrestlers get slapped “here and there,” and that the freshman was not targeted.
Lewis told the school resource officer and the assistant principal that he did a “hit-and-run” on the victim, running up behind him and slapping him, then running away, according to the incident report. He also said that “the wrestling team just enjoys goofing off with one another and no one ever takes it serious,” the report says.
A witness said team members always play around, but lately, with the victim, “the guys are taking it too far,” according to the report.
The two students, as well as four others, were disciplined by the school, according to the report. All received “some type of suspension.”
Wes Kirkland, the attorney representing Painter, said he couldn’t say whether his client struck the younger student.
“The only thing I can confirm is what I know about my client is (that) he’s a good kid,” Kirkland said.
Painter’s mother, Katie Painter, said the assault charge took the matter too far.
“I agreed with the punishment from the principal, but this has turned into a police matter,” she said. Her son returned to school after the suspension.
Heath Taylor, the attorney representing Lewis, said the incident was “horseplay.”
“It’s simply boys being boys in a locker room,” Taylor said.
Lewis is back in school, Taylor said.
After the incident, the high school’s athletic program “made some adjustments so the wrestling locker room could be monitored better,” according to the incident report.
School officials said in a statement Wednesday that 29 students were interviewed as part of the investigation, and that “several of the students admitted to giving and receiving ‘Five Stars’ and ‘Dead Legs.’” The students described these activities as “horseplay,” the statement says.
Two school employees were placed on administrative leave during a school investigation, which the statement says is standard procedure.
The investigation “showed that an incident did occur and that no coaches or teachers were in the locker room at the time,” officials said. The investigation found no evidence that teachers and coaches knew that “this type of horseplay had been occurring,” according to the statement.
An open palm slap on the back? I say this requires the death penalty.
Seems undefined and ambiguous. Seems fatally flawed. Seems like a real bad civil suit coming.
All I can say is that schools NEVER get bullying right.
If a brutal student terrorizes a kid, the school tries to shrug it off.
If two kids truly horse around, the school is likely to press criminal charges.
I have no information on this particular case, and it is conceivable that the matter is being handled correctly. But that seems to never be the case.
I support banning all government schools. I support homeschooling.
But was it Atomic?
Sounds like they need to hire Dennis Hastert and give him a Lazy Boy chair to sit in and watch the boys.
Horseplay at school? How dare there be horseplay!
Let the lawyers get involved immediately. They can straighten things out.
Anyone remember the classic “pink belly”? How about the sailors in Freepland? Remember the “Tacking of the Crow”? This stuff is literally childs play...
We used to “trade” punches. No big deal.
The “Leg” hit could be trouble if the target falls and hurts themselves.
Fortunately we didn’t play “catch the shotput” or “catch the discus”. Also, we didn’t have the javelin throw or some Darwin Award candidate would have tried.
Common sense is needed on occasion.
Oh, the old “Five Fingers of Death” slap!
Towel snapping in gym class is now assault with a weapon...
He obviously didn’t have access to a “safe space” to retreat to. SMH
Think of schools as prisons for children where they get released at the end of the day only to have to return the next day and their actions make more sense.
It is much easier and safer to go after a minor who is just being annoying then a minor who is capable of doing bodily harm to an innocent.
If it was truly nothing more than horseplay, then a cry baby doesn’t need to be on the wrestling team. Who’s idea was it? Daddy reliving his HS days?
Wedgies are a felony.
Yikes, this story is nothing.
In high school I was set up by someone on my cross country team and I had to fight a wrestler, in the nude, after coming back from a 12 mile run. First he sprayed me astringent, then fisticuffs, then I locked an arm around his neck, kneed him in in the face, then pounded his head on the concrete. Then he wrestled me into the jacuzzi room and tried to drown me. Then we wrestled up against a wall where we punched and I banged his head on the wall. Then I broke free into the locker room and we wrestled some more up against the benches. I suggested we both had had enough, he agreed, stood on a bench and tried to kick me in the nuts, barely missing the right spot before running off. All this in front of my team mate “friends”.
Next day I showed up for practice like nothing had happened. I only saw the other guy one more time, but he ran off.
Ah the good old days, when a royal beating was just a part of life.
I was waiting for it, yeah it sure can be, in Jr. High gym class some of the more popular types targeted a kid just because he was considered nerdy by them, typical kids right? So they went after him with wet gym towels rolled into what we called rat's tails, nailed the kid in the nuts, just horseplay but it cost the kid a testicle and took a long time to forget his screaming. So yes sometimes horseplay really is assault, was it here? I don't know, there really isn't enough information.
That’s nothing!
One day I was at home threatening the kids when I looks out through the hole in the wall and sees this tank pull up and out gets one of Dinsdale’s boys, so he comes in nice and friendly and says Dinsdale wants to have a word with me, so he chains me to the back of the tank and takes me for a scrape round to Dinsdale’s place and Dinsdale’s there in the conversation pit with Doug and Charles Paisley, the baby crusher, and two film producers and a man they called ‘Kierkegaard’, who just sat there biting the heads of whippets and Dinsdale says ‘I hear you’ve been a naughty boy Clement’ and he splits me nostrils open and saws me leg off and pulls me liver out and I tell him my name’s not Clement and then... he loses his temper and nails me head to the floor.
Oh, wait ...
The perp always claims that it was just fun and games. Does the recipient agree?
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