The 15-year-old Santa Margarita Catholic High School student wasn’t sure what to expect when he heard loud cheering and banging sounds coming from the locker room that houses the varsity football team.
As he walked toward the lockers, a player shouted “Get him!” The lights were shut off and several team members slammed him against a locker, pinned him to the ground and took turns “touching, yanking, grabbing, pulling, and twisting his genitals,” according to a lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court on Tuesday.
The lawsuit, first reported by the Orange County Register, details a disturbing assault against a sophomore football player that triggered a police investigation and has left the boy with post-traumatic stress disorder, severe depression and anxiety. At least eight other student athletes at the high school have also been assaulted by teammates, according to the lawsuit.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department has launched an investigation into the incident, according to the lawsuit. The sheriff’s department could not immediately be reached for comment.
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Attorneys say Emanuel “Manny” Garcia, a 15-year-old freshman at the time, was injured after in 2021 when he slipped on uneven terrain that was not maintained.
Oct. 1, 2024
“This kind of stuff shouldn’t happen at any school. It shouldn’t happen in any locker room. It shouldn’t happen to any child,” said Greenberg Gross partner Brian Williams, who is representing the boy’s family. “The adults in charge of programs like this clearly need to do better. They need to do a better job of protecting student athletes and preventing what appears to be a systemic problem within the culture of that team.”
The lawsuit, which names Santa Margarita Catholic High School and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Orange, alleges negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Attorneys are seeking unspecified damages.
Bradley Zint, a spokesperson for the Diocese of Orange, said in an email that the diocese is “currently unable to provide comment and has not yet been served with the complaint.”
The Santa Margarita Eagles football program is highly competitive in the world of high school sports and has produced more than two dozen players who have gone on to the NFL. Head Coach Anthony Rouzier, who was placed on administrative leave, in an announcement made in early October. The school said the coach’s leave was triggered by “incidents within the football program.” It is not clear whether his departure is tied to this incident.
A parent whose child is in the football program said they became aware of the investigation into the locker room incident within days, when law enforcement interviewed players at the school.
The parent, who did not want to be identified to protect their child’s anonymity, said the incident was “blown out of proportion.” The other players denied touching the student in any sexual manner, the parent said.
The parent said the teens would often play a game where they turned off the lights and tried to “scare” other players, but said it was not malicious.
“It was kids being kids. Nobody was punching anyone. It wasn’t even wrestling. It was horseplay,” the parent said.
The boy, described by his attorneys as an athletic teenager, had enrolled at the high school this school year and was excited about the prospect of playing on an esteemed high school football team.
But following the Sept. 24 attack, the student has not wanted to play the sport any longer, according to the lawsuit.
During the attack inside the locker room, the boy fought back against his teammates, which caused him significant bruising, the lawsuit claims. He screamed “no!” and “stop!” as several players groped him and others watched, the lawsuit says.
After the incident, he went to get help from the team’s trainer because he was in pain. But another player stopped him, according to the lawsuit, saying “this is football, you knew what you were signing up for.”
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Hannah Fry covers breaking news for the Los Angeles Times. She most recently covered Orange County for The Times and has written extensively about criminal trials, housing, politics and government. In 2020, Fry was part of the team that was a Pulitzer finalist for its coverage of a boat fire that killed 34 people off the coast of Santa Barbara. Fry came to The Times from the Daily Pilot, where she covered coastal cities, education and crime. An Orange County native, Fry started her career as an intern at the Orange County Register.
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