HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

Athlete’s Jaw Broken in ‘Orchestrated’ 2019 Mater Dei Beating: Lawsuit

Two years before a hazing incident left a football player with brain damage, another Mater Dei student athlete was allegedly attacked.

A student athlete at Mater Dei High School was left with a broken jaw and severe head injuries after an “orchestrated” beating delivered by two teenage football players in 2019, according to a lawsuit. The suit, filed in May, was first reported on Monday by the Orange County Register. Its existence was revealed less than two weeks after the filing of another lawsuit, alleging a brutal traditional hazing ritual in February had left another football player with traumatic brain damage.

The complaint details an “orchestrated attack,” according to the Los Angeles Times, carried out after a Mater Dei student, wrongly believing a basketball player had shared an embarrassing video of him online, conscripted two football players to intimidate and attack the basketball player. The football players confronted him on May 5, 2019, punching the victim repeatedly in the face and head until he fell to the ground. “What does it take for this to stop?” the victim’s mother asked. “This should be a wake-up call for this coach to do something.” An attorney representing the football players described his clients’ actions in a September court document as self-defense.