Videos of Girls Forced to Do Splits at Cheer Camp Lead to Coach’s Firing
The allegations had caused five officials from Denver Public Schools to be placed on leave—- including the coach, the principal
and the assistant principal at East High School — the school system’s superintendent, Tom Boasberg, said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Under no circumstances should a young person be forced to continue any activity beyond the point they have expressed the desire to stop.”
The announcement came after a widely circulated video showed a 13-year-old girl, an incoming freshman, being forced into a split, with one leg in front of her
and the other stretched behind her, even as she pleaded repeatedly to “please stop” and appeared to cry out in pain.
Days after the Denver Police Department announced that it was investigating allegations
that girls at a high school cheerleading camp had been forced into a painful splits position by their coach and teammates, the coach has been fired.
In a report this week about the investigation, KUSA, an NBC affiliate in Denver, said
that video and others that were sent anonymously to the station show eight cheerleaders being forced into the splits position.
On June 15, Kirstin Wakefield, the mother of the girl seen in the video, sent an email to the assistant principal,
who was later put on leave, asking what the administration planned to do about the incidents, according to KUSA.