Police Investigating Claim That High School Football Players Sexually Assaulted Teammate

Bixby, Oklahoma School Board members met for nearly eight hours on Thursday night without coming to any decisions about school officials who may have been involved in a cover up of a sexual assault of a 16-year-old football player by four of his teammates.

The assault allegedly took place during a dinner for the offensive line at an upstairs bedroom in the home of school superintendent Kyle Wood. The 16-year-old claimed the assault was recorded on a cell phone, but was later deleted.

The 16-year-old and his mother told school officials the four boys took a pool cue stick and partially penetrated the boy’s anus, according to Tulsa World coverage of the incident report that athletic director Jay Bittle provided to the board following his investigation into the incident.

The victim claimed this was the second time this kind of sexual assault has occurred, with both incidents taking place at the superintendent’s home. Another player was said to have been the victim the first time an assault was allegedly committed.

Bittle’s report and what appears to be early efforts to keep the incident quiet are at the center of the Bixby Police Department’s investigation, and the school board’s concern. Bittle conducted his internal investigation and completed it before telling the Bixby Police Department that a sexual assault may have taken place.

“We felt obligated to tell the Bixby Police Department that we believed a potential sexual assault had occurred,” Bittle said in his incident report. Bittle referred to it as a “hazing incident” during a “gathering/dinner,” without mentioning the location of the dinner.

The police department issued a search warrant for all electronic communications concerning the incident written or received by Bittle, Wood, high school principal Terry Adams and football coach Larry Montgomery, in an effort to determine how long the officials were aware that an attack may have taken place before calling the police, and if any efforts were made to cover up the incident and/or the location where it occurred.

Bittle said he began his investigation on October 26 when he first heard the allegation and turned the information over to the police one week later, but not before he and Adams, who was in the room during some of the interviews, talked things over with Wood to determine what course of action to take.

The search warrant indicated one of the things the police were looking for was evidence of “failure to report child abuse.”

No information has been released about any arrests taking place, though all of the alleged attackers are juveniles, whose names would not likely be made public.

The football players were kicked off the team, which had won state championships the past three years, just before it lost to Booker T. Washington in the state championship game.

The school board indicated in a news release it will determine what action to take during a special meeting on December 18.