Four former Mead High School football players and their parents have sued the Mead School District for failing to protect the players and report the abuse, harassment and racial discrimination the four black student-athletes allegedly experienced at the hands of their teammates.
The plaintiffs filed a tort claim last spring stating their intention to sue.
According to the lawsuit, two of the players were attacked by their white teammates with battery-powered massage guns during the 2022 and 2023 Mead summer football camps at Eastern Washington University.
One of the white teammates told the other two Black players in the lawsuit that they were “next” after the first attack in 2023, the lawsuit said.
The same older white teammates wanted to attack one of the other two black players in the camp, but a white teammate refused to give up the player’s location and was instead attacked with the massage gun, the complaint said.
Players filmed the 2023 attacks and the videos circulated in the Mead community.
Reports and videos of the attacks were reported to Mead staff in the following months, including football coach Keith Stamps and athletic director John Barrington, who retired in March.
The 37-page complaint for damages filed Friday by Sweetser Law Office in Spokane and Connelly Law Offices, which has offices across the state, alleges that school administrators and employees ignored district policy and state law by failing to report or report the conduct stop despite video evidence and reports.
“They inexplicably failed to timely notify the victims’ parents of the harassment,” the complaint said. “The result: a group of white football players continued unhindered while tormenting black teammates.”
Mead Superintendent Travis Hanson wrote in a statement that Mead does not tolerate discriminatory harassment in its schools.
“We are aware of the lawsuit that has been filed and take these allegations seriously,” Hanson wrote. “As this matter is now in court, we will not comment publicly on the numerous inaccuracies in the lawsuit or on the details of the case. Our lawyer has asked us to present the facts in the context of the lawsuit. We recognize that litigation can be an inherently difficult process for all participants. The district does not want to make the process more difficult for the students involved or their families by publicly discussing this issue. Any further comments will be left to the discretion of the attorneys representing the district.”
After the June 2023 attacks, three of the Black players faced harassment and routine racial slurs, the complaint said. One of them was sexually assaulted in the school locker room by two of the white attackers in the camp.
Eight months after the attacks in 2023, school officials first informed the victims’ parents that their children had been attacked, the complaint said. The parents were stunned to learn that their children had been attacked and that school officials had known nothing and said nothing.
One soccer parent reported the assaults to Mead in August 2023. The parent’s son reported that one of the coaches was aware of the assault and, according to the parents’ email, the coach told the players, “We used to use a stick, guys. have softened,” the lawsuit said.
During a December meeting between Stamps, Barrington and Mead High Principal Kimberly Jensen, Jensen’s notes indicated that Barrington stated that the incidents did not rise to the level of hazing, and that they were “boys, boys,” the complaint alleges.
In January, the lawsuit states that one of the black players was beaten and sprayed with water by one of the alleged football attackers in a Mead wrestling team van in the school parking lot. The player had a panic attack and started hyperventilating. The wrestling coach called the incident “just little things,” the lawsuit says.
The player’s mother reported the incident to the school administrators and coach, but they did nothing, the lawsuit said. She reported the attack to Crime Check and the mother was told that the wrestler who punched him would be unable to wrestle again for two weeks.
Instead, the wrestling coach pressured the victim to agree to reduce the sentence to one week, prosecutors say.
During a January meeting with a concerned soccer parent, the lawsuit said Jensen’s notes indicated there was a clear disparity in the way Mead downplayed the attacks because the victims were boys, including her note stating, “If this had been a girl, we would call it gang rape.”
The school district conducted an investigation shortly afterward.
In a letter to district parents this spring, district officials said a significant number of student-athletes participated (both directly and indirectly) in inappropriate and offensive conduct that involved elements of hazing, including intimidation and targeted harassment.
“Details about what happened at the team camp came in bits and pieces over an inordinately long period of time, and ultimately the gravity of what took place last summer was fully realized at a time months removed from the actual incidents,” the letter said .
All four student plaintiffs transferred from Mead because of harassment from teammates and other students, the complaint said. One of the students was seen researching how to die by suicide on a school computer, while another student was given a sports suspension for failing to report the attacks to Mead staff.
According to the complaint, the student was given no warning, no opportunity to defend himself, nor was he informed of any wrongdoing before the suspension was imposed. School administrators even told him and his mother that he had “done nothing wrong.”
Four Mead football players were barred from participating in the “Battle of the Bell” rivalry game against Mount Spokane High in September because one of the victims moved to Mount Spokane and might play in that game, according to a court ruling.
Sweetser Law Office is representing the Mount Spokane player in another complaint against Mead.
“Above all, these clients feel a real responsibility to ensure this does not happen again or to anyone else,” Colin Prince of Connelly Law Offices said of the lawsuit.