The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department says it has completed its investigation into allegations of abuse inside Roncalli High School’s football locker room. An IMPD spokesman confirmed for WTHR the case has now been turned over to the Marion County Prosecutor’s office to determine if any charges will be filed.
13 Investigates first exposed the abuse allegations last month. A student with Down Syndrome who volunteered as a team manager said football players videotaped him while he was using the bathroom and shared the video with other students.
A few weeks later, after the student reported the incident to his parents and school administrators, the school learned from an anonymous tipster that some members of the football team allegedly retaliated by again videotaping the same student as he was forced to lick the chest of a classmate in the locker room. The teenager reluctantly admitted the second incident to his parents after weeks of silence because he said some of the football players threatened to kill his parents and friends if he told anyone what had happened.
The Archdiocese of Indianapolis said the incidents were reported to IMPD and the Indiana Department of Child Services, but it has not said when that happened and whether school administrators reported them immediately upon learning of the incidents or only after parents and WTHR began asking questions.
The school says one of the students who allegedly participated in the locker room incidents left Roncalli to enroll in a different school and that it issued a suspension, but Roncalli has not said whether it required any football players to miss any football games as a result of the reported locker room incidents. In an email obtained by 13 Investigates, the school’s dean of students informed the victim’s mother that he helped a football player delete some of the locker room video – video that may have been helpful to investigators if they had been able to review it.
Based on witness interviews, prosecutors will now have to decide if they have enough evidence to warrant any criminal charges.
In the meantime, 13 Investigates learned Friday afternoon the prosecutor’s office filed charges in another incident that occurred inside Roncalli High School.
Longtime teacher and coach Bob Tully now faces one count of battery resulting in bodily injury after a student reported that Tully put him in a choke hold in the school cafeteria. Tully, who has been a staff member at Roncalli for 58 years and who was honored this year by having the high school’s football field named after him, denies putting the student in a choke hold. Numerous student witnesses told investigators and WTHR otherwise. Roncalli placed Tully on paid administrative leave as the criminal proceedings play out in court. He and his attorney both declined comment when contacted by 13 Investigates.
