OKLAHOMA CITY – Assault and battery charges were filed Friday against a Putnam City West high school student stemming from an alleged sexual assault investigation.
Dawson Michael Mclain, 19, has been charged with felony assault and battery with a dangerous weapon for his alleged role in holding another student who was reportedly raped with a broom handle in the varsity locker room.
It’s unclear if the three other suspects in the case, all juveniles, have been charged.
“This is and was a difficult situation for all involved,” the district said in a statement Friday evening. “The district will continue to cooperate as the legal system works its way through this process.”
Putnam City Campus Police say on September 29, at around 10:00 p.m., school officials received an email notification through an online bullying reporting system.
The email stated that an anonymous student witnessed an assault that happened on September 28 around 2:45 p.m. in the Putnam City West football locker room.
The anonymous student witnessed the victim being carried from the freshman side of the locker room to the varsity side. The witness said they saw someone “grab a broomstick and shove the stick up [the victim’s] rectum.”
On October 1, school officials started contacting students and staff to investigate the report.
As more information was being gathered, “more reports were coming in that the assault occurred,” read the report.
School officials met with the students listed in the email report and determined that a fourth student “aided in the assault by holding [the victim’s] hands down while the victim was assaulted by others with a broomstick.”
“All four confessed verbally and in written statements to participating in the assault of [the victim] with the broomstick,” according to Putnam City Campus Police.
The suspects said in written statements that the broomstick or “the stick” has been passed down from class to class. Police say it’s a form of hazing referred to as “brooming,” and “normally involves students chasing each other around with the broom stick.”
This is the first report of an assault occurring from hazing within the football program.
The victim confirmed that the suspects “carried him from the freshman locker room to the varsity locker room and assaulted him in the rectum with a broom
stick.”
School officials recommended the victim see a physician.
A police report states the suspects were disciplined by the school until the investigation was complete.
The district told News 4 last week that one employee was placed on leave, but could not name them, citing privacy issues.
