Local authorities are investigating an alleged assault last August that may have involved one of the teens recently charged in the beating of a Blue Earth Area football player.
Deb Schaffer, who now lives in Colorado, tells Tripleanews.com her 18-year-old son Shawn Kane was given a ride to Steinberg Park along Highway 16 in Blue Earth.
“He was lured there,” says Schaffer. “There were two other persons there and he was beaten.”
The incident occurred on Aug. 29, says Schaffer, and it was video-taped with a cell phone and posted on Facebook.
Blue Earth Police Chief Tom Fletcher says his department was recently made aware of the incident.
“The assault was the result of one boy beating up on another boy,” he says. “The suspect was a juvenile at the time of the assault. We are investigating the incident and charges are expected.”
Schaffer says she and her son moved to Colorado when he was 14 years old because students at school would bully and pick on him because of his learning disability.
“The bullying was affecting his twin sister and I had to get him out of here,” she says. “For years he was beaten and bullied but no one ever did anything. School officials would just ignore us.”
The Schaffers moved back to Blue Earth in 2016 because the boy’s father was involved in a car accident.
The boy tried to enroll at BEA High School, she says, but was placed at the Southern Plains alternative school in Winnebago.
According to Schaffer, her son was beaten at a party in Fairmont three days prior to the alleged assault in Blue Earth.
Fairmont police were contacted days following the beating, however, Schaffer says they convinced her not to press charges because Shawn could also get in trouble.
Schaffer says she saw a small portion of the Aug. 29 video and people on Facebook were asking if anyone who knew the boy being beaten should come forward.
She received a copy of the four-minute recording and realized it was her son. It was turned over to local police.
“It’s cut and dry,” she says. “My son didn’t do anything, but nothing has been done.”
“Someone is going to get killed if something isn’t done,” she adds.