Police investigating incident involving students inside Bellport HS locker room

When asked if any students have been suspended, the district's public relations firm said they do not comment on individual student disciplinary matters. The superintendent and athletic director have not returned News 12's repeated calls.

Rachel Yonkunas

May 4, 2023, 12:20 PM

Updated 577 days ago

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Suffolk police confirm they are investigating an incident involving students that happened inside the locker room at Bellport High School. On Wednesday, News 12 reported that the South Country School District decided to cancel the remainder of the junior varsity boys' lacrosse season.
The school district is only saying that they are taking this matter "extremely seriously," but the superintendent and athletic director are remaining quiet.
Parents in the district are now raising transparency concerns.
"It leads me to wonder, what was it? I have to worry about my son now," said parent Kim Marcinek.
Suffolk police said the high school contacted them on April 28. However, parents said they did not receive an email from the district about the investigation until May 3. They believe they should have been notified much sooner.
"Hopefully, we get answers and whoever was involved here got in trouble for what they did because it's terrible," said Marcinek. "Kids come here to learn, do sports, it's just, I'm outraged and I hope we get answers sooner than later."
The director of Section 11 sports for Suffolk County said he also has been given limited information. He said the school district's athletic director only said they needed to forfeit games because of issues they were dealing with on the JV boys' lacrosse team.
Some parents feel that a lack of response from the school district only silences the victim.
"Being a parent in the school and having an issue with my youngest daughter within the school, sometimes that tends to happen for sure," said parent Lindsay Jeffrey. "The only way to get through it is you have to be a very vocal parent. If you're not vocal and if you don't make waves and try to explain to everybody that this is a big problem and we need to address it, it gets nowhere."
When asked if any students have been suspended, the district's public relations firm said they do not comment on individual student disciplinary matters. The superintendent and athletic director have not returned News 12's repeated calls.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story reported that police said the season cancellation was due the police investigation. Police would only confirm that an investigation is underway.