Teens face Ellsworth battery charges in Great Bend swim team incident

Two teens face battery charges in connection with an assault on a fellow member of the Great Bend High School swim team in February, the Ellsworth County attorney announced.

“An episode of teenage male athlete horseplay progressed (or degenerated) into several incidents of battery” upon the 14-year-old victim on Feb. 6 aboard a Great Bend school district bus following a meet in Salina, County Attorney Joe Shepak said in a prepared statement.

The two boys will not be arrested, Shepak said. They will be allowed to turn themselves in at the Ellsworth County Courthouse.

Ellsworth County Sheriff Tracy Ploutz interviewed nine people who said they heard or saw something aboard the bus, Shepak said. Once the cases have been adjudicated, the county attorney said, he will allow access to the “voluminous” police report in response to “the incredible rumor phenomenon” connected to the incident.

“Some rumors, bandied about on social media, state/suggest that younger boys were raped and/or sodomized on the Great Bend school bus,” Shepak said in his prepared statement.

There were 25 people aboard the bus, he said.

“Reasonable people would think that if such events were occurring, then the adults and/or older teenagers on the bus would have intervened.”

Yet Barton County Sheriff Brian Bellendir said last month evidence suggests the felony of aggravated criminal sodomy occurred on another trip by the Great Bend High School swim team just days earlier.

The sheriff’s office has identified a 15-year-old boy as a victim and a 17-year-old boy as a suspect in an incident on a Feb. 3 trip. Both are students at Great Bend High School. The case remains under review by the Barton County attorney.

This story was originally published April 8, 2016 at 1:10 PM with the headline "Teens face Ellsworth battery charges in Great Bend swim team incident."