Assault On Wrestler Splinters Community -- Sunnyside Grappling Over Blame, Bias, Shame

SUNNYSIDE, Yakima County - Shame has settled over this little farm-valley town like the dust from the semitrailers rumbling past on their way to Yakima.

In broad daylight, in the wrestling room of Sunnyside High School, the pride of the community, a crime took place that some have already likened to "Lord of the Flies," the classic story of adolescents swept away by mob-think and blood lust.

A 15-year-old boy was sodomized with a mop handle while wrestling teammates held him down and dozens of other wrestlers watched. The attack sent the boy, bleeding and traumatized, to the hospital for a week.

A CLOUDED AFTERMATH

No one disputes what took place. But what it means, and why it happened, isn't so clear.

At first, news that the victim was Anglo and those accused of the crime were Hispanic hit the community like a blowtorch. Four wrestlers have been charged with second-degree rape.

Although no one has claimed that the crime was ethnically motivated, simmering ethnic tensions between Anglos and Hispanics have been heating up this town of 11,000 for years.

Recently, the fast-growing Hispanic population, fed by former migrant workers who have taken up residence here, became the majority. But Hispanics, many of them complain, remain excluded from much of the local power structure.

Among students at Sunnyside High, Hispanics outnumber others. They exceed 60 percent of the student body; and nearly a third of the 1,100 students come from migrant families.

The explosive growth in the number of Hispanics has led to ethnic tensions.

"Racism is alive here. We confront it every day, we breathe it every day," says Sam Martinez, a leader in the Mexican-American community whose son attends the high school.

ETHNIC NAME-CALLING

Indeed, many Anglos openly refer to some Hispanics as "spics" and "wetbacks." In the lingo of Sunnyside, families who have been here for years become "Spanish." The newer immigrants are called "Mexicans."

In that atmosphere, ethnic undertones soon became dominant in some of the questions asked by parents, residents and students, as well as by lawyers for the accused students and for the victim.

"It's a volatile situation," says Principal Bill Gant, noting that many reports of the incident have used "that four-letter word - rape."

The four wrestlers accused of the crime, ages 14, 15, 16 and 17, were expelled from school, although they have maintained their innocence. All four have been charged in juvenile court, and prosecutors are considering charging the 17-year-old as an adult.

If the suspects had been Anglos, says Jose Morales, president of the Lower Valley Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, "there would have been a more thorough investigation; the action to expel them from school immediately would never have happened."

Some Anglo parents, for their part, claimed that students who had been brought up properly would never have participated in such a deplorable incident.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

But now, three weeks since the crime, Hispanics and Anglos- and even the lawyers - find their questions and positions converging. The school's winning wrestling team provides a source of pride, especially among Hispanics, who make up 90 percent of the team. And as the facts emerge, both Anglo and Hispanic residents say they're troubled by the unanswered questions surrounding the case:

-- Why, they are asking, did none of the teammates who watched the assault - as many as 40 or 50, depending on the account - sound the alarm? The victim's lawyer says the boy was "screaming at the top of his lungs."

-- Does the school condone - or even encourage - violent behavior by members of its athletic teams, especially if they are winners? If "boys will be boys," where is the line and who should draw it?

-- Why were those who committed the crime apparently not worried about detection? The crime took place just minutes before a wrestling practice, and two coaches were nearby, occupied in other areas of the building.

-- Was the school careful enough in its investigation, which resulted in the four students being expelled from school? Or did it simply offer up some "scapegoats," as the lawyer for one of the accused boys suggests?

WRESTLER DENIES ATTACK

Last week, on his way to a court hearing, the 17-year-old accused of wielding the mop handle issued an open plea to an unnamed teammate - the one he says committed the crime - to "be man enough" to come forward.

The next day, more than 50 high-school students left their classes, carrying signs and chanting, in a demonstration against letting the accused students return to school. Another group, roughly equal in size, protested that the accused students should be considered innocent until proved guilty.

The following evening, an angry crowd of 800 to 1,000 parents and students crowded into an elementary-school gym to give their opinions in strong language about what happened. Some speakers at the meeting called for the whole wrestling program to be shut down. Others asked about the coaches' responsibility.

PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

At the meeting, Principal Gant delivered the school's report of its investigation.

"Roughhousing," he said, goes on at times and includes "dogpiling" (many wrestlers piling onto one), "bulldogging" (tackling a fellow team member), giving "noogies" (closed fist rubbing another's hair), and "brownies" (pulling another wrestler's shorts up as far as they will go) and "pantsing" (taking the guy's pants off).

Gant's report says "the broomstick" was used to "poke or prod" students six times in the past, with four of those instances on the same day as the rape. There is no evidence, Gant says, that coaches knew about these incidents.

But Tim Lyczewski, a parent, says he had no trouble getting more than 300 people - both Anglo and Hispanic - to sign a petition calling for an independent investigation, a reflection, he says, of a lack of confidence in the school administration.

"I think they're busy covering their own tracks," says Lyczewski.

WHY NO ALARM?

Especially troubling to all sides is why none who watched what happened in the wrestling room went for help. A number of possibilities have been suggested and argued, each troubling in a different way:

-- Wrestlers felt their actions were condoned; that roughhousing had been accepted in the past and this was just one small step further.

"I'm not excusing any part of this," Gant says. "But the roughhousing and horseplay - anybody who is involved in athletics knows it goes on."

Gant's explanations don't set well with many observers.

"To call it horseplay and hazing, that's a cop-out," says Lyczewski. "Either they didn't know about it and should have, or they knew about it and didn't do anything. Either way, they're responsible."

His own theory: "They don't want to threaten the wrestling team."

Allowing "dogpiling" and "pantsing" is a "clear, strong signal" to kids that violence is tolerated, says J. Jarrette Sandlin, lawyer for the boy accused of using the mop handle.

"You've got a lot of young men, post-pubescent, very intense, each one encouraged to display his aggressiveness so he will be a successful wrestler," says Sandlin, who is considering suing the school district for what he believes is a pattern of allowing violence.

"How in the world can you expect these young men, who are looking to their coaches as their role models for leadership, inspiration and guidance, to find their proper roles when we have an attitude in the school district that `boys will be boys' and that this was just horesplay that got out of hand?" Sandlin asks. "This kind of roughhousing should never have gone on."

-- The school not only condones such activities, but in some ways, encourages - or does not put proper controls - on violent behavior.

Christopher Tait, the victim's lawyer, also says he may sue the district for tacitly, if not overtly, encouraging the wrestlers to pick on others by posting lists of those who had quit the team or who had had absences.

The list of those with absences, called "the wimp" list, included the victim's name, highlighted in pink, Tait notes.

Another boy who quit the team to take a job - and whose name was posted on the "quitters" list - was hassled and punched in the hallway, Tait claims.

"There is a group in the community," he adds, "that says, `It's too bad this happened, but this is what it takes to have a winning team."

Tait wonders why the boys accused of attacking his client felt secure doing such a thing in the wrestling room, which is open to the gym, with coaches nearby.

"They must have been very secure in the notion that nobody would report it," Tait says. "What does that tell you about the atmosphere?"

-- Most of the wrestlers didn't think what happened was that serious.

Indeed, some suggested that in the public forum. And interviews

reveal that some students, especially boys, don't see any big problem.

"It shouldn't be taken too seriously," says David Ramos, a senior. "It was more or less a prank, taken too far."

Some of the students make light of the incident out of discomfort, says Wilfredo Martir, a school counselor. "This has been a highly emotional issue," tinged with sexual overtones, he says. "They don't know how to handle it."

Sandlin, however, notes that some wrestlers have said they don't see anything wrong with the rough "horseplay" - or even the incident itself.

"That's why the sickness still exists," says Sandlin, who thinks the wrestling program should be eliminated. "Wrestling is a privilege, not a right," he argues. "There were 45 students in the room. When the 45 allowed this to happen, they forfeited their right to a wrestling team."

-- Wrestling is one of the few ways for Hispanic kids to really succeed at Sunnyside High, and they were reluctant to blow the whistle, fearing that the program could be curtailed.

"This is a big image-builder for the Hispanic children," says Morales of the Lower Valley Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. "These kids are not going to squeal on their partners."

-- The witnesses were afraid that if they complained they'd get the same treatment.

The victim, says his lawyer Tait, will undoubtedly have lasting psychologial harm from what he calls a "very vicious, brutal attack." He says other boys clearly got the message that they had better toe the line.

"There is a real fear factor here," says Tait.

PAIN COULD BE HEALING

In long run, however, says Martinez, a member of the newly formed Community Relations Commission for the Lower Valley Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, what happened in the wrestling room can provide an opportunity for Anglos and Hispanics who live in this town.

"We're still two communities, two mind sets," says Martinez. "I'm tired of confrontations. I think we need to come together. We have the same needs: safe communities, safe streets, safe from drugs. It's just that our needs have an accent - that's the only difference.

"Everyone wants the same thing."