Parents make bullying claim over mug shot T-shirt of teen worn to high school soccer game
When Kevin Rittenhouse’s teenage son was caught using marijuana with friends last year, his dad tried to do the right thing and turned the teen, a member of the soccer team at his Indiana high school, in to police.
“Authorities confiscated his phone and that’s how they came up with the other names of the other players and they assumed my nephew was a ‘nark,’ ” Kelly Chastain, the aunt of the now 18-year-old youth, tells WRTV. “That’s when the other players and parents started turning against my nephew and my brother.”
Resultant bullying of Alex Rittenhouse got so bad that he transferred from Marion High School to Oak Hill High School to get a fresh start. Then, at a Sept. 3 soccer game with between Oak Hill and Marion, children and adults supporting Rittenhouse’s former team showed up wearing T-shirts printed with his mug shot and reportedly chanted the player’s name.
Although officials of Marion High School, which hosted the game, said they acted decisively to stop those at the game from publicly wearing the T-shirt, the Rittenhouse family says more could have been done to prevent the bullying.
“I was shocked, first, and then I thought, ‘How did they get this picture?’ Because I had never even seen the picture,” Kevin Rittenhouse told Fox 59.
“I know kids will be kids, I know they make mistakes, but to see an adult wearing this T-shirt—that was unbelievable to me,” he told WRTV.
In a written statement provided to Fox 59, Marion High School called the display of the T-shirt “disappointing.” The statement added that “school administrators took a proactive stance at the time of the games, turning people who were wearing the shirts away at the gate. No one was allowed into the stadium with one of the shirts visible. Unfortunately, there were a few who concealed them and displayed them once inside the stadium. MHS administrators dealt with those as they arose, and people were asked to cover the shirts or leave the stadium.”
Kevin Rittenhouse told Fox59 he repeatedly asked game officials to see that those wearing T-shirts were dealt with and it wasn’t until the soccer game was half over that the situation was resolved.
Hat tip: New York Daily News
