Coach pays kid to hurt disabled teammate

 

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- A T-ball coach allegedly paid one of his players $25 to hurt an 8-year-old mentally disabled teammate so he wouldn't have to put the boy in the game, police said Friday.

 

Mark R. Downs Jr., 27, of Dunbar, is accused of offering one of his players the money to hit the boy in the head with a baseball, police said. Witnesses told police Downs didn't want the boy to play in the game because of his disability.

 

Police said the boy was hit in the head and in the groin with a baseball just before a game, and didn't play, police said.

 

"The coach was very competitive," state police Trooper Thomas B. Broadwater said. "He wanted to win."

 

Downs has an unpublished telephone number and couldn't immediately be reached for comment Friday. It was unclear whether he had an attorney.

 

He was arrested and arraigned Friday on charges including criminal solicitation to commit aggravated assault and corruption of minors. He was released from jail on an unsecured bond.

 

The alleged assault happened June 27 in North Union Township, about 40 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, authorities said.

 

The boy's mother asked state police to investigate her son's injuries because she suspected Downs wanted to keep the boy off the field, despite a league rule that required each player to participate in three innings a game, Broadwater said.

 

Eric Forsythe, the president of the R.W. Clark Youth Baseball League, said Downs had two daughters on the T-ball team.

 

League organizers investigated accusations against Downs before the T-ball season ended earlier this month but could not prove that he did anything wrong. If Downs is convicted of any crime, he won't be allowed to be a coach next year, Forsythe said. The league is not affiliated with Little League International.

 

I hope they lock this f***ing moron away for years. Gah... pisses me off that a guy like this can be so near children. They ought to lock him up for a long, long time... IMO.

 

Mercy...

That guy doesn't deserve jail he deserves to get his ass beaten, badly.

Edited July 16, 200520 yr by Rowand44

That guy doesn't deserve jail he deserves to get his ass beaten, badly.

What do you think will happen to him in prison???

What do you think will happen to him in prison??? 

Haha, good call. Just people like this really don't even deserve jail, it's sick, it really is.

Of course I totally agree with you though. This guy deserves worse then prison.

T-BALL......... what an ass but hurting any kids anytime is bulls***. He will get his I believe.

Fellow inmates just love child abusers much less kids that are mentaly handicaped. I have a brother that is just like the kid here. If someone did that to him who knows what I would have done.