At least 11 Westhill (N.Y.) High School lacrosse players have been given a warning to either surrender to law enforcement for their part in a recent extreme hazing incident, or face kidnapping charges.
The directive comes from Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, following an incident that happened last Thursday when a group of lacrosse players lured a fellow player to a remote part of Onondaga county and left him there.
Fitzpatrick said that what took place goes "way beyond hazing."
According to CNN, there were five victims identified by the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office, but one student was driven to a remote area where people appeared from the woods, dressed in black and armed with what appeared to be at least one handgun and at least one knife.
The group allegedly then put a pillowcase over the victim's head, tied him up and threw him in the trunk of a car before he was left in a wooded area in the southern part of Onandaga County.
“He was eventually returned home. There was a period of time where he thought he was going to be abandoned in the middle of nowhere,” Fitzpatrick said. “You can hear that some of the individuals found it amusing,” he said, referencing a videotape of the incident recovered during the investigation.
“I’ve seen the videotape of what happened to this young man. It is not a rite of passage. It is not a trivial matter. I don’t know how long this young man will be affected by what happened to him,” Fitzpatrick added.
The victims of the incident will not have to press charges, Fitzpatrick said, as the court will prosecuted by the county in a family court, assuming the perpetrators surrender themselves.
In that scenario, they would not have bail set, they would be released to their parents’ custody and their case would be handled in family court — or if the individuals are too old for family court, “you will end this situation without a criminal conviction and a criminal record,” Fitzpatrick added.
Fitzpatrick gave those involved in the crime 48 hours to turn themselves in to the sheriff's department to face misdemeanor charges of unlawful imprisonment.
“If you don’t — if you’re tougher than me, you’re a gambler and you’re going to play the odds, you don’t think you’re going to get caught — trust me, the men and women of the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Department are going to identify you,” the district attorney said. “You’ll be arrested, you’ll be prosecuted as an adult, and you’ll be charged with the very, very serious felony of kidnapping, perhaps in the second degree.”
Westhill Central School District superintendent Stephen Dunham said the remainder of the lacrosse season will be canceled, suggesting that while most of the team was not involved in the incident, the program needs a "reset."
The incident was initially reported by a school resource officer who contacted the sheriff's department, which turned over the investigation to the district attorney.
Fitzpatrick warned that if the students do not turn themselves in, they will face dire consequences. “Then don’t come crying to me two weeks from now and say, ‘you charged my little baby with kidnapping.’ Yeah, that’s right. Most of my prosecutors can win cases that are on videotape.”
