Plainview police investigating alleged assault among high school students
Plainview police are investigating reports of an alleged assault by multiple students against one student.
The incident happened in the days leading up to the Plainview-Elgin-Millville High School Homecoming in late September. Some homecoming events were canceled in the days following.
In a statement, Superintendent Darrin Strosahl said the incident was limited to a small number of students, and that the district found the students had violated the school’s code of conduct.
“The poor behaviors we dealt with were not determined to be hazing, sexual harassment or racially based, nor was there physical injury involved,” he wrote. “The behaviors were however out of line and disappointing. Students can learn from this because what was intended as pranks and fun quickly turned and crossed a line that jeopardized student safety because of mob mentality.”
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Strosahl was not immediately available for comment.
Police Chief Jason Timm said new information brought to his office this week prompted an investigation.
“We received information that we don’t feel is limited to just a conduct issue. It’s more potentially on the criminal level as far as assault,” he said. ”We are conducting our own interviews of witnesses and suspects and so forth to find out exactly what happened, so it can be evaluated if it needs to be forwarded to the County Attorney’s Office for review.”
“We don’t have evidence of sexual assault,” Timm said. “Assault means being tied up. We are investigating if he was physically harmed. Verbal threats would fall under the assault aspect.”
Timm said there appears to be one victim and his office believes there were multiple perpetrators.