Posted on 03/08/2002 3:53:26 PM PST by chance33_98
Yates student paddled
Father alleges assault
03/08/2002
HOUSTON (KHOU) -- Jimmie Bigham is holding pictures of his son, Trey. But they weren't the kind of family photos that Bigham always carries with him.
These are pictures of the bruises, after being paddled. That was two days ago.
"He's still in pain," the father mutters, looking at the pictures.
The football program at Jack Yates High School is traditionally one of the city's best.
In the spring, players lift weights and run. Apparently Trey Bigham missed a day of workouts.
Two assistant coaches decided to discipline him by giving everyone in the class what's called a pop.
"One swat of the paddle to his butt," Jimmie Bigham says, one from every student in the class. He believes his son was swatted nearly 30 times. This, after all the coaches, he says, had been told not to use the board.
Last July H.I.S.D.'s school board changed its policy, prohibiting all forms of corporal punishment.
Friday, Bigham's attorney, Benjamin Hall, said only the swats delivered by the coaches, themselves, could even qualify as corporal punishment.
"Basically what you have here is state-sponsored assault and battery of this kid," Hall explains, "Cause you have teachers telling students to assault another student."
Bigham filed a criminal complaint against the two for assault against a juvenile.
And he cried, as he looked at the pictures. "I'm upset about it cause this is my child. And I love him."
The two assistant coaches have been removed from the school.
A step in the right direction. Crimminally prosecute individually. Now, sue the pants off the school district for not providing a safe environment and guess what? The school will instantly comply with what they gave only lip service to before. And, as a side benefit, other school districts will stand up and take notice and enforce their "policies" as well.
This is high school. It's supposed to be a sport. What lessons of sportsmanship are they learning by coaches who break the rules to beat the kid so hard he has bruises?
I hope the asst. coaches are charged criminally.
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