By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – The Maine Attorney General’s Office continues to investigate a hazing incident in which an Auburn teenager said he was attacked by fellow Junior ROTC members during a summer training camp.

“It’s still an open matter,” said spokesman Chuck Dow.

Martin Houston, a junior at Edward Little High School, said Lewiston and Auburn high school students chased him down in the middle of the day, hog-tied him, dragged him out of his barracks and left him yelling for help while at an ROTC summer camp in Gilead.

After he was left face-down on the ground, Houston said, one of his attackers came back and pushed a knee into the his armpit, straining the electrical tape that bound his hands and bruising his wrists.

In October, Thomas Harnett, assistant attorney general for civil rights education and enforcement, said the hazing incident had been investigated and the attackers disciplined by the schools and the court, but his office was investigating what Houston and his family claim is the racial motivation for the attack.

Houston is the only black member of the Lewiston High School ROTC program, which also includes Auburn students. He said he was also the only one attacked that day.

The attorney general’s office is still looking into the incident. It isn’t unusual for such investigations to last for months, Dow said.

Junior ROTC Col. Robert Meyer, who recently became the head of the program, said the Junior ROTC’s investigation found that an incident had happened, but that “there was zero evidence of it (being) based on race.” The Junior ROTC program may reassess the incident if the attorney general’s office ultimately finds it was racially motivated, Meyer said.

Houston is “totally assimilated” into the Junior ROTC program and there have been no issues this fall, Meyer said. But, he added, “We all want some closure.”

Regardless of the attorney general’s findings, Meyer will assess the five-day summer camp to ensure it meets standards and has procedures in place for a safe experience for all cadets. If he can’t assure school officials that the summer program is safe, Lewiston Superintendent Leon Levesque said he would end Lewiston’s participation in it. Because Auburn students participate in Lewiston’s Junior ROTC program, they would also be unable to attend if Lewiston pulled out.

Levesque said he never considered dropping the Junior ROTC program altogether.

Despite the incident, Houston remains at Edward Little and is still a member of the ROTC program. He is currently the highest-ranked cadet in his class.

His mother said he gets counseling every week and is dealing with anger stemming form the incident.

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