View full size

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio -- It’s Monday, and ominous-looking clouds are pushing over Harding Stadium as dozens of football players in practice jerseys prepare to take on Cleveland’s Benedictine Bengals.

But this day two key players are missing from the field.

Police had arrested two sophomore starters just days before and charged them with kidnapping and raping a 16-year-old girl from a town just across the river in West Virginia. One of them is also accused of taking a nude photo or video of the girl.

Several players still on the practice field are also believed to be linked to the incident. Steubenville police are trying to determine whether they were there at the time of the attack or sent digital images of it all over cyberspace.

Officials continue to investigate details of the reports — that the girl was drugged into unconsciousness, ferried from party to party, raped and urinated on before ending up at home where her parents, discovering she was disoriented, took her to a local hospital.

On the practice field, longtime coach Reno Saccoccia is planted inside a huddle of boys. He occasionally grabs a player by the shoulders and peers into his helmet.

Saccoccia is talking X’s and O’s.

Latest stories

Protest over investigation of suspected rape turns spotlight on Steubenville

Jefferson County sheriff says there is no coverup in Steubenville rape investigation

Steubenville creates website to counter rumors about reported rape involving football team members

Steubenville rape case: What happened and how the community is handling it

p>The rest of the town is talking rape.

Some have questioned whether football players tied to the incident should still be playing. Others in this town that practically shuts down each Friday for the high school game say there was no reason to bench them — yet.

It’s hardly the first time in Ohio, or anywhere else in the country, that high school athletes have been charged with rape. It is not the first time such allegations have divided a town, either.

But the high-pitched back-and-forth over the past two weeks in this Ohio Valley town illuminates how Steubenville’s pride-driven adulation of its sons is clashing mightily with the reality that it may be harming its daughters.

Bystanders in cyberspace

Central to the conversation is a distasteful anthology of one night’s events, created by players and recent graduates through a series of Tweets, online postings, photos and at least one video.

Within this mix, police are searching for evidence against the local stars that could make them, and possibly others, felons.

Whether found to be criminal or not, the remarks of teenage cyber bystanders have many dumbfounded, wondering how so many young adults could discuss the incident online but not step up in person to help the victim or, later, the police.

That alone, some say, should motivate the town — and the schools — to change the culture. So far, there’s little evidence that is happening.

Days before a police rape report was made, pictures, video and offensive Tweets circulated online about what people are now cautiously referring to as "the incident."

But even so, few people have gone to authorities with information, in spite of pleas from Police Chief William McCafferty.

"That night [of the incident], not one person stepped up and said something. Whatever happened, not one person stepped in to stop it," he said.

After the rape was reported, McCafferty went on television urging parents and kids to come forward if they were witnesses or had received photos or video.

Again, mostly silence. Only one parent called and one other approached the chief at a football game.

Within a week of the Aug. 14 report, police and prosecutors felt they had enough evidence to arrest two of the football players. Authorities also got search warrants to seize cellphones so they could be analyzed. The search warrants were sealed by a local judge.

Police said they were still awaiting results on other physical and biological evidence collected at a crime scene and a local hospital. Lab tests should also reveal whether the victim was drugged.

Meanwhile, Steubenville’s lone juvenile-crime detective is slogging through all of the Tweets, the rumor-laden forums and message boards, looking for kernels of truth.

"We have a lot of rumors, but we can’t build a case on rumors," McCafferty said. "We need evidence."

That evidence will probably come in large part from confiscated cellphones and Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts. And from the dozens of teens and young adults who supposedly attended parties the weekend of the reported rape.

McCafferty said what bothers him most about the case is the silence — both on the night of the incident and now.

Before the 16-year-old girl’s parents reported the crime to Steubenville police, many of the online posts had been deleted — or so students thought.

Many of the missives are still searchable online and have been preserved on blogs, like Prinniefied.com, run by Alex Goddard, who formerly lived in Steubenville and now is a national social media and web analyst.

Goddard said she felt the chance that others involved might not be charged was too great, so she began her own investigation online.

"I felt the scab needed to be back to expose the truth," she said, adding that during her search she also found students’ Twitter conversations from April indicating members of another of Steubenville’s sports team were being accused of rape. No police report was made.

From the incident involving the football players in August, she posted screen-grabs from the Twitter and YouTube accounts of Steubenville student athletes and some recent graduates, including one at Ohio State University, who Tweeted the night of the party: "Song of the night is Rape Me by Nirvana."

The same person, who said he wasn’t at the gathering but was communicating with friends who were, also referred to the girl as "the dead body" and said: "Some people deserve to be peed on."

A Steubenville football player posted a 12-minute video related to the incident on YouTube that was deleted before police got the report. It was tagged with the words "rape" and "obscene."

While the video can no longer be watched, the name of it and evidence that another Steubenville football player also Tweeted the same video can still be seen online.

After the arrests a Steubenville student Tweeted to one of the arrested teens, "f - - - em bro. i got ur back man. Someone took s - - - to far."

Yet another football player opined, "Were not gonna let dumb s - - - like this mess up our state championship goal."

View full size

High school football rules

High school football is as big as college football in the Ohio Valley, especially in Steubenville, which has won three state titles since Ohio went to the playoff system, the last in 2006.

Big Red games are played in a 10,000-seat stadium, gigantic for a high school in a town of just more than 18,000. A red stallion named Man o’ War rears atop the scoreboard, ready to shoot 6-foot-high flames from its mouth when the home team scores. Games are shown on television, and the slogan "Roll Red Roll" is plastered everywhere.

Even Gov. John Kasich gave a shout-out to the football powerhouse when he came to the district to give his state-of-the-state address from the high school auditorium.

The love of Big Red football and the small town complicate an already difficult investigation.

Aside from the students’ Tweets and other online posts, the allegations first came to light — before police even knew about them — on the Ohio Valley Athletics sports-talk website, co-founded by Brian Gossett, a Steubenville native and assistant coach at a high school near Cincinnati.

The initial reaction, he said, was disbelief by residents that "their kids" could be involved in anything so serious.

"We always wish the best for our young adults, and it’s heartbreaking when you hear of situations like this where poor judgement may have played a factor in a potentially serious crime," one posted.

Gossett said the tenor of the conversation changed when site users said they began to see some of the jaw-dropping and sexually explicit posts on local Twitter accounts. Many also described seeing a picture of the victim fully clothed but passed out and being carried by her wrists and ankles.

"Nobody had to accuse these kids of anything," Gossett said. "They went to social media and told the world what they did, incriminating themselves."

The mostly anonymous users on Gossett’s site also questioned whether local officials, specifically Jefferson County Prosecutor Jane Hanlin, should be handling a case they are so connected to. Many alleged that Hanlin couldn’t be trusted with the case because of her connections to the district and to some of the kids and their parents.

Hanlin, who was president of Steubenville's school board before being appointed prosecutor in 2011, did not return calls from The Plain Dealer, though she spoke extensively to local media. Hanlin defended her integrity but formally asked the Ohio attorney general's office to step in last week.

Two prosecutors from that office’s child sex crimes unit have met with investigators and will handle the case.

The local juvenile judge also asked the Ohio Supreme Court to replace him because of potential conflicts. A visiting judge from Hamilton County, Thomas Lipps, will hear the case.

Lawyers for the two 16-year-olds did not return calls for comment. Their clients are to be in court again on Sept. 14 for a hearing in which a judge will determine whether there is enough evidence to support the charges. If there is, another hearing will determine whether each teen’s case should remain in juvenile court or whether he should face adult criminal charges.

The father of one of the teens has proclaimed his son’s innocence all around Steubenville.

He stood in front of the courthouse with a sign and attended a City Council meeting last week asking no rush to judgment in the case.

"He is a good child, an outstanding student and a credit to Steubenville High School. I ask you to let justice prevail," he said, according to a local newspaper article.

McCafferty said he’s tiring of the suggestions that the role football plays in the community is swaying the investigation — that police were slow to make an arrest or that the crimes will be "swept under the rug."

"It doesn’t matter to us. It’s ridiculous for people to even think that," he said. "Other people might put football first, but we don’t."

He expects it to take weeks, if not months, to finish such a complicated investigation.

"We’ve never had a case like this," he said. "Not like this."

The city has few reported sexual assaults. So far this year it has had eight reports, with two involving juveniles.

Rape reporting difficult

Sandra Lyons, a part-time advocate for sexual assault survivors in the area, has been taking in the firestorm surrounding the case from her small Steubenville office.

Lyons said she couldn’t speak specifically about the case other than to say many in the community are supportive of the victim — even if they aren’t the loudest voices.

Reporting a rape is hard, Lyons said. In a small town, where everybody knows everybody, it’s even harder.

Katie Hanna, statewide director for the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence, said the incident is an opportunity to have a conversation with kids, not just in the Ohio Valley, but everywhere.

"This doesn’t just happen in Steubenville," she said. "It happens all across Ohio every day. The message to students needs to be, ‘When you see something, do something. When you hear something, say something.’

"Believe the survivor and remove any offensive posts from being distributed over social media," she added.

That happened to some extent in Steubenville. While there were many voices defending the football players or making light of the rape report, some teens Tweeted supportive statements to the victim.

The 16-year-old victim even re-Tweeted another student’s comment directly to one of the boys accused of in the attack that said, "If someone is dangerously inebriated you help them out not take advantage of them. Who the f - - - raised these people."

But if a wider conversation about sexual violence is going to happen, it may not be inside the classrooms of one of the highest-performing school districts in the state.

Superintendent Mike McVey said that the more than 600 students at the high school get information about sexual assault and dating violence in their health curriculum. That’s required by state law.

But McVey plans to address the current allegations and the way the students responded only "if it interferes with the learning process."

When told of the taunting surrounding the case on social media, he said that technology is a "gray area."

But the kids should know "what’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong. .¤.¤. We’re not going to be witch-hunting everyone down," he said.

Coach Saccoccia says he can’t comment about the investigation involving his team. But he seemed unaware of social media and what his players have posted about drugs, drinking, and demeaning women.

He would only say: "I treat every kid like he’s my son. Whatever I would do with my own son is what I would do with these kids."

View full size

A change in culture

Back at Harding Stadium at practice on Monday, it’s starting to rain. Peewee football players are practicing in the shadow of the stadium.

Two football boosters are leaning on a fence when a reporter walks up. "You should get in your car and go home," one says. "Go back to Cleveland."

"This is none of your business," said the man, who eventually identified himself as Fred Walsh. "We’ll take care of our own mess."

As the rain continues, Walsh’s stance softens. "Listen," he says, "everyone in the city is sick to their stomachs about this. But we have issues here that go deeper than a team or a coach. They go to the parents. The cultural mentality has changed. The parents aren’t in charge anymore."

But those problems, he said, won’t be solved by maligning a small town football team.

That battle isn’t going to be won or lost on a field.

Postscript: Steubenville beat Benedictine 32-28 in Friday night’s game. The several players believed to be linked to the incident played in the game.