Idaho family sues school after alleged sexual assault of black football player

By William Wan and Michael E. Miller May 25 at 7:34 PM

The whispers began last fall in Dietrich — allegations that white students on the high school football team had sexually assaulted a black teammate with a coat hanger.

But no one in this rural Idaho town of 330 really knew the horrific details of the case until the victim’s family filed a lawsuit this month against the school.

Now, the lawsuit has sparked recriminations, debate over racism and hand-wringing bewilderment over how something like this may have happened in a town so small that its children attend the lone school in Dietrich from kindergarten through high school graduation.

“A few years ago, some kids broke into the one little store we have in town; that was our big crime wave in Dietrich,” said Mayor Don Heiken. “We’ve never seen anything like this. No one knows how to deal with it, what to make of it.”

Two teammates were expelled from school in November, and in March, after a lengthy investigation, three were criminally charged with sexual assault. A judge sealed records in the case at the request of the state attorney general’s office.

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