Former Mead football player files $50M federal lawsuit over alleged camp hazing

Allegations of hazing by Mead High School football escalated Thursday when one of the alleged victims, and his parents, filed a lawsuit seeking $50 million in damages in a case that also names Eastern Washington University.

The federal lawsuit centers around the same series of allegations raised with a 2024 lawsuit that continues to progress in Spokane Superior Court.

In it, four former Mead High School football players and their parents sued the Mead School District for failing to protect the players and report the assaults, harassment and racial discrimination that they believe was leveled against the four student-athletes, who are Black.

While that case remains before Superior Court Judge Annette Plese, one of the former players and his parents filed the new lawsuit in federal court that is seeking $50 million in damages. And it named EWU because much of the hazing allegations occurred in a dormitory in Cheney.

The federal suit describes two separate incidents, one in 2022 involving one football player and another in 2023, where three other Black players alleged similar activity. The alleged victims in that case say other players physically restrained them as they were stripped naked and assaulted with an “oscillating massage gun” while other teammates cheered and took cellphone videos, according to court records.

In the 2022 incident, the first player was taken to a separate dorm room, which apparently was the room of Mead’s receivers coach at the time, Gunner Drew, who was not there.

The player “was then disoriented with multiple strobing flashlights, loud chanting by masked observers, physically restrained and held down on a bed by fellow teammates, and stripped of most of his clothing” despite the player’s attempts to defend himself, the suit states.

“One of the white players announced that it was ‘time for (the player) to pay the price.’ As other players pulled out phones and recorded, multiple white players assaulted (the player) by passing around and placing a battery-powered oscillating massage gun into (the player’s) anus.”

After the incident, the player did not tell his parents what happened but asked them to transfer him to a different school.

“Over the ensuing months, players shared videos of (the player’s) assault widely throughout the school … and were shown and discussed in classrooms during school hours, subjecting additional students to viewing or hearing the assault,” the suit states. “The trauma was unbearable.”

Even after leaving the district, the player continued to receive threats.

In the player’s senior year at a different school, he “was taunted and pressured to remain silent, including by peers showing him videos of the assault,” the suit states.

A year later in 2023, different Black players reported a similar incident at the same football camp on the campus of EWU.

“As had happened to (the first player) the previous year, videos were widely circulated throughout Mead’s student body and to school administrators, and (the player) can be heard screaming as they attack him,” the court documents state.

Eight months after the 2023 assaults, school officials first informed the victims’ parents that their children had been assaulted, the complaint says. The parents were stunned to learn their kids were assaulted and that school officials had known and said nothing, according to the lawsuit in state court.

One football parent reported the assaults to Mead in August 2023. The son reported that one of the coaches knew about the assault and, according to the parent’s email, told the players, “in our day we used a stick, you guys have gone soft,” according to the state lawsuit.

The federal suit alleges that Mead officials violated the first player’s rights by failing to report abuse, violated the state law against discrimination, violated the player’s constitutional rights for equal protection, committed discrimination under Title IX regarding sexual harassment and assault, violated the players’ civil rights based on race, were negligent and were responsible for the players’ assault and battery.

As for EWU, the suit accuses Eastern officials of negligence.

“EWU knew or, by the exercise of reasonable care, should have appreciated the risk of harm to minors that were left completely unsupervised in the dormitories,” the suit states.

Calls placed Thursday evening seeking comment from Mead School District spokesman Todd Zeidler and EWU spokesman Linn Parish were not immediately returned.

When a previous lawsuit was filed related to the hazing incidents in 2024, Mead Superintendent Travis Hanson wrote that the district’s attorneys advised school officials not to comment on the specifics of the case.

“We recognize that litigation can be an inherently difficult process for all participants,” his 2024 statement said. “The district does not want to make the process more difficult for the involved students or their families by debating the matter publicly.”