An update to last week’s article about the high school freshman who was brutalized (allegedly) by at least one teammate on the football team. This will likely be a recurring issue here until some concrete action is taken. In the meantime, I remain equal parts impressed by the hundreds who are not letting the incident go, and horrified by the alleged adults who are intent on either burying this story or pretending that it was an accident.
In an email, August Borden’s father, Jason, says his son “still struggles with memory loss—simple things like forgetting where plates are kept in his own kitchen.” The point regarding the boy’s memory reinforces a separate issue that has nagged the locals like a bad smell that lingers. While the Tuscumbia, Alabama PD delayed interviewing August so that his memory might return, more than a few people asked (rhetorically, I suspect) what cops would have done if the boy had been killed. The unspoken but implied answer is, let the case die along with the victim.
It is an easy conclusion to reach, considering that police have not seriously spoken with anyone else, either. Not the perpetrator who has admitted to applying the bear hug from behind that rendered August unconscious. Not the unnamed person who performed CPR on the youth after his heart stopped. Not any other students and adults in or around the area when this happened, and not a single coach who talks about the team as family until it’s time to man up.
What the police chief has done, a chief convicted of DUI not once but twice, is to tell area media that the assailant and victim were good friends who were “cutting up.” Because who among us has not sent a friend to the hospital with life-altering injuries. To further push this narrative, the football team doctor is telling anyone who will listen that such injuries are common among people who fall face-first.
To recap, August sustained a fractured skull, both orbital bones broken, a concussion, and other bumps and scrapes that pale in comparison to what shapes up as traumatic brain injury. I’ll go on a limb and say the team doc is, at best, embellishing. I have not run across a single story with injuries this severe from an unconscious person collapsing. I have also been a teenage boy and a father to two more; there were zero incidents among them or any of their friends that required hospitalization. August’s father says a long and difficult road to recovery lies ahead, “likely spanning years or even his entire life.”
This is a thumbnail overview of where things stand:
· The list of secondary suspects has grown from three to five.
· The case has been handed over to authorities in an adjacent county.
· One correction from last week: the prime suspect turns 18 in a month or so; he’s not there yet, as was originally reported, so the neighboring county’s juvenile division is handling the matter.
· There has been no disciplinary action taken against anyone, not so much as sitting out the first snap of a game despite missing the entire week of school, which used to be a cardinal rule for coaches with even a modicum of integrity.
For perspective, two elementary school kids in the same town were not only suspended from class for getting into a scrap during the same week Borden was hurt, but they were also barred from participating in two youth league games. You read that right. Eight and nine-year-olds are being held to a higher standard than high school seniors, despite a code of conduct that expressly forbids one person from putting hands on another. Rules tend to lose their moral authority when they are not applied consistently and equally.
This case has also resurrected memories from former students who are chiming in by the dozens to detail a dysfunctional culture with a history of condoning intimidation and mistreatment of students who are not part of any “in” group. While that is pure hearsay, the chronic mishandling of this incident gives those claims credence. Why wouldn’t it? Human nature has always held that you get more of what you allow, and when what you allow is bad behavior, it will also intensify over time.
The football team, almost without fail, has turned its back on a teammate. That violates every code that has ever existed in athletics. As best I can tell, only one of August’s teammates has taken anything close to a stand. That was Jordan Holmes, who refused to dress out last Friday night and instead wore August’s jersey to school and the game. Whether or not he faces repercussions remains to be seen.
Had August’s father not recorded his conversations with multiple school officials, it is almost certain that nothing else would have happened. He, the mother, and the stepfather are a united front in not letting their son’s case be forgotten. That’s the problem with investigations being slow-walked; memories fade, support starts to die down, and frustration builds. I’ll let you know if any substantive developments occur.
This is so disgusting. Leadership and integrity sadly missing at the PD and the school. I hope his memory returns quickly and completely so these cowards can no longer hide in the dark.