Talucci pledge has been playing the butt for four years. But Talucci, Junior of Westhill High School in Syracuse, New York, said that he had finally decided to leave sport about two weeks ago to focus on “other things” like school and his personal life.
A week after leaving the team, several players would be accused of having committed an act that the district prosecutor called “Hazing on steroids”. On Wednesday, 11 students transformed into police after the Syracuse district prosecutor urged them to go within 48 hours or they are prosecuted to the adult and accused of kidnapping.
The DA said that if the players went on Friday, they would be labeled for illegal imprisonment, but it would be treated by the family court system and would not be their legal records.
“I think it was a mistake that was made by good people I have known for many years,” Talucci told “Good Morning America” on Thursday about the students responsible for the incident.
Gage Talucci, a former butt player at Westhill high school in Syracuse, New York, explained how 11 of his teammates went to the police for an alleged hazing incident in an exclusive interview with “Good Morning America”.
GMA
Onondaga County District Prosecutor Bill Fitzpatrick said that he had decided to bring charges against the 11 students – most are members of the university boys team – who would have homondeed young students last month under the threat of a weapon.
In the evening hours of April 24, the students would have decided that they would make mist or play a sort of farce on some of the youngest members of the butt team, “Fitzpatrick said at a press conference on Tuesday.
A victim told officials that he was going to spend a “pleasant evening with the upper classes, go to a butt match and end the evening with something to eat at McDonald’s,” said Fitzpatrick.
But, on the way to the return of food consumption, the driver of the car said he had been lost and stopped in a distant part of the county, that is to say that “the accomplices jumped wood by pretending to be kidnappers,” said Fitzpatrick.
These accomplices, who were other students, were dressed in black and armed with “at least one handgun and at least one knife,” said Fitzpatrick.
According to the DA.
Investigators say there were four other potential victims, but they were able to flee from the region.
“I cannot really express to this community the level of stupidity and the lack of judgment involved in this case,” said Fitzpatrick.
Onondaga County District Prosecutor Bill Fitzpatrick said that he was giving Syracuse high school students at 11 a.m. to go to the police for an alleged hazing incident.
Wsyr
Talucci, who was in contact with the students accused of hazing, said that they were “extremely stressed”, with a teammate so worried that he cannot sleep at night.
The Junior Lycée, which has known the suspects since he was in college, says they are “good people who have made bad decisions”.
“I have known these boys for so long, it’s not something that I expected from them and anyone in Westhill,” said Talucci. “This whole story does not reflect each athletes or students or anyone linked to Westhill.”
Following the news of the hazing incident, the superintendent of Westhill’s schools, Steven Dunham, sent an email to the families saying that the school had taken the “difficult decision to cancel the rest of the Westhill High School university butt season”, even if the majority of those of the team were not involved in the alleged hazing.
“Some may say that all student-athletes should be punished for the actions of a few. Although I understand the perspective, we must approach the culture of the program, and the most appropriate way to do so is with reset,” said Dunham.
Talucci said that the school’s decision to end the butt season early was “unfair” for other teammates who did not participate in hazing. Overall, he said that he feared that the incident could put a negative perception on the community as a whole.
“My concern about all this is that it will change the stigma that is already happening with the butt, that these boys are considered degenerate and that the whole community is simply not good,” said Talucci.
Rosemary Talucci, Gage Talucci’s mother, said that she was “grateful” that her son had not participated in the alleged hazing.
“The boys who have done this are good children. They come from good families. They just made a huge mistake and I think many schools can learn,” Rosemary Talucci told “GMA”.
Syracuse resident Kaeleigh Collins, told ABC Affiliate Wsyr She agrees with the DA’s decision to continue these students for this incident.
“They are young children and children are children, but it’s not ok and I don’t think it’s ok never loudly for any reason. You are supposed to be a community,” said Collins.
A lawyer for one of the players, Tom Cerio, said that students “recognize that their actions were inappropriate and do not minimize fear and distress felt by other students”.
“I saw the video band of what happened to this young man, it is not a rite of passage, it is not a trivial question,” said the district prosecutor this week. “I find it incomprehensible that nowadays that someone thought he could have been with something like that.”
