Star Discovers The Meaning Of Deja Vu

I told you more than a week ago about a decade-old sexual assault case involving a 15-year-old member of the Carmel High School swim team and several of his teammates, who allegedly pulled down his pants in the locker room and shoved a foreign object up his anus. I found the similarities between that case and this year's alleged sexual assault of freshmen members of the school's basketball team by senior players of the team quite chilling. I couldn't understand why the news media in this town couldn't recall the older incident, particularly the Star, where I found a old news story about the incident in its online archives. The Star's Tim Evans and Heather Gillers finally got around to writing about the swim team case today, but the pair omitted some of the most pertinent facts that shed light on the case's mishandling. Go see my original post to get a clearer picture of what transpired. Here are the opening paragraphs of the story in today's Star entitled "Allegations in Carmel have a feel of deja vu":

High school athletes are accused of physically restraining a teammate and sexually assaulting him. After a lengthy investigation, the prosecutor elects to send the case before a grand jury. There are a number of witnesses -- and they give conflicting accounts.


The grand jury ultimately reaches a decision criticized by some in the community as too lenient. Accusations swirl that the athletes have been given special treatment.

It all happened. In Carmel. In 1999.


Then, it was the swim team. Now, almost a dozen years later, an eerily similar -- and divisive -- scenario, this time involving the basketball team, has once again fueled questions, outrage and accusations directed against athletes, coaches, the school and public officials.

But this time the community has additional questions: How could this have happened again? And will the district this time take stronger action to ensure it doesn't happen yet again?