Thursday, October 13, 2011

Football coach at Chicago's Fenger High charged after players attack disabled teen at his home

From the NY Daily News:

A Chicago high school football coach watched as more than a dozen of his players viciously attacked a disabled teen on his front lawn in front of his mother, police said.

Fenger High School coach Cassius Chambers, 28, turned himself into police and was charged with misdemeanor simple assault, police announced Oct. 12.

The charges stem from an incident on Oct. 1 when cops say some 20 to 30 football players rolled up in two cars and jumped Darion Jones, 16, (pictured) and a pal outside the teen's home on Chicago's southside.

One of the players had accused Jones of stealing his Nike flip-flops, Jones' mother told Chicago's NBC affiliate.

Chambers and one of his assistants, Roscoe Pitts, watched the mêlée, but did nothing to stop it, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Pitts has not been arrested.

Jones' prosthetic eye was damaged in the brutal beatdown. He also had a tooth knocked out, his mother, Patricia Thurmond-Jones, told NBC.

A 17-year-old boy was arrested and charged as a juvenile with misdemeanor battery the day after the attack, cops said.

Chambers and Pitts have been suspended from their coaching jobs, according to local reports.

Fenger gained national attention in 2009 after Derrion Albert, 16, was beaten to death in a violent gang fight near the school. The attack was captured on a gruesome amateur video.