July 6, 2009:
In a Tampa middle school locker room, prosecutors say four flag football players held down a younger teammate and committed a horrifying assault: Raping him with a hockey stick and a broom handle.
“Don’t do it again or this is going to happen to you again,” a witness says he heard one of the boys say in the April attack.
Two decades ago, the attack may have stayed a secret. Victims of hazing, bullying and sexual assault are still often too terrified to report their attackers — though officials say that’s starting to change.
Police are called to investigate everything from cyber-bullying and schoolyard fights to brutal hazing rituals, and tormenters can be prosecuted under anti-bullying laws in dozens of states. Proactive parents aren’t afraid to confront school officials or take the matter to court, and schools are training students and teachers alike to spot and report bullying.
“Back in the old days it was, ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,’” said Kevin Quinn, a school resource officer in Arizona and regional director of the National Association of School Resource Officers. “In today’s day and age, words do hurt and that’s how a lot of the bullying begins.”
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