Criminal Charges Possible In Hazing

A touch football game between suburban Chicago high school girls turned into a brutal hazing in which players were slapped, punched, doused with paint and splattered in the face with mud and feces.

Officials at Glenbrook North High in Northbrook were examining videotapes taken by students who had gone to a park Sunday to watch the annual "powder puff" football game between junior and senior girls.

CBS News Correspondent Jim Axelrod reports 100 students were involved and five girls were hurt – one broke an ankle, another had 10 stitches.

Police and school officials in the well-to-do community are investigating.

School officials stressed that the game was not sanctioned and occurred off-campus without their knowledge.

Videotapes played on television show girls in yellow jerseys punching, slapping and dumping paint on other girls kneeling on the ground. Some spectators hoist cups of beer.

Zach Blum, a student at the school, witnessed the game and captured some of it on tape. He visited The Early Show Wednesday to discuss what he saw.

"It's supposed to be a football game, where the senior girls will play the junior girls. But it just turned into a hazing event," Blum explained. "The senior girls kind of just beat up on the junior girls."

School officials were looking at tapes and photographs to identify students for possible discipline, spokeswoman Diane Freeman said. Students involved in athletics or other extracurricular activities must sign a code of conduct that requires them to behave both on and off campus.

"There's nothing else we can do," Freeman said. "It's out of our jurisdiction. The courts and the parents will mete out punishment."

The powder-puff game began years ago as a school-sponsored event that occurred on school grounds as a fundraiser to pay for homecoming activities.

It was an event of role reversal — girls played flag football and the boys either coached or served as cheerleaders, according to officials. Sometime around 1979-1980, the event was getting out of control and the school canceled its sponsorship. However, students took it off campus.

As the years passed, the tradition continued and became more violent. This year, officials didn't find out about the game until it was over and students were injured.

"I guess the school didn't really know how bad it was getting," Blum said. "They didn't know people were getting hurt like this."

"It's a very sad situation," said Glenbrook North Principal Michael Riggle. "I think it's tragic, and it's certainly nothing that the school would ever condone in any way. I think that it was a horrible situation, and no human being should be subjected to the type of treatment that those girls suffered during that incident."

Blum said he realized the event was getting out of hand when one girl started bleeding from the head.

"I've been to this [event] before. And it never got this out of hand," he said. "I'm not sure why this one in particular got more out of hand than the other ones."

Although the injuries took place outside the high school's property, Riggle said the school is working with the Cooke County Sheriff's department in its investigation.

He said the school may suspend the suspected girls from extracurricular activities for violating the Code of Conduct they signed at the beginning of the school year.

"We will take a look at all the steps that we can do and take action wherever possible," Riggle said.

Police are considering criminal charges against the girls as well.