AUBURN – At least one Edward Little High School student will appear for a disciplinary hearing next week and could be expelled for allegedly beating another student.
Although police have charged three students with the Jan. 26 assault and the high school has suspended at least two, school officials declined Thursday to say how many teenagers were summoned to the hearing.
It will be held in an executive session Tuesday. The School Committee, which leads the hearing, will vote on any punishment in public.
The committee has a range of options in a disciplinary hearing, from doing nothing to ordering the suspension or expulsion of a student.
According to police, three students jumped and beat another student at the high school three weeks ago. The victim told police that three students approached him in a hallway and beat him until he fell to the floor. He said at least one suspect kicked him in the head while he was down.
The school soon suspended at least two students. Police charged three with assault and have forwarded their investigative findings to the attorney general’s office for possible prosecution as a hate crime.
The three students charged are black. The victim is a white, 17-year-old junior at the school. Police said it is standard policy to involve the attorney general’s office if there is a possibility a crime may have been racially motivated.
The three alleged assailants are 16, 17 and 18 years old. Police have identified one – 18-year-old Roberto Continat of Auburn – because he is legally an adult.
School officials and others involved in the case said the school fight last month was related to an incident earlier this year. In that incident, the victim’s sister was struck by a belt after a high school basketball game and two groups of teens, from both Lewiston and Auburn, erupted into a verbal exchange. Some students say a racial slur was used during that exchange.
Police say hostilities carried over, causing further altercations and leading to the alleged assault.
Several people involved in the dispute, including the victim, said racial issues were not a direct factor in the incident. Other teenagers say the three black students got tired of being harassed by the victim and his friends.
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