White Idaho football players accused of raping mentally disabled black teammate

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The parents of a Dietrich student have filed a $10 million lawsuit against the Dietrich School District, charging the school failed to protect their son from escalating racially-based harassment and assaults that culminated in the teen being brutally raped with a coat hanger by fellow members of the football team.

The victim, whose identity is not being released by KTVB, is black and has mental disabilities. His alleged attackers are white.

According to prosecutors, the sexual assault happened Oct. 23, 2015 in the high school locker room. The lawsuit describes one teammate pretending to offer the victim a hug, then holding him down as another boy inserted a coat hanger into his rectum. A third attacker then kicked the coat hanger several times, forcing it farther into the victim's body and causing rectal injuries that required treatment at a hospital, lawyers say.

According to the lawsuit, the 18-year-old victim was called names including "Kool-Aid," "chicken-eater," "watermelon" and the N-word by his football teammates beginning in the summer of 2015.

John R.K. Howard, who is charged as an adult with forcible sexual penetration in connection to the assault, also posted a confederate flag on the plaintiff's computer and demanded he learn and recite a racist song titled "Moonman Notorious KKK," which makes reference to lynching, according to the suit.

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