Eight high school students in the middle-class suburb of Lakewood were in custody Friday, accused of raping or molesting girls as young as 10 in a gang competition to accumulate “points” for sexual conquests.
Los Angeles Sheriff’s deputies who made the arrests Thursday said the incidents went back at least five months and that scores of victims might have been involved. Lt. Joseph R. Surgent said that seven victims had been identified so far and that he expected additional arrests.
The arrests, some of them on the campus of Lakewood High School, have divided the student body into angry camps and have shocked a quiet town.
As counselors met with students Friday, the principal, Mike Escalante, said the school had been traumatized by the arrests, made in front of television cameras, and that many of the students were speaking out in support of the accused boys.
One student came to class Friday wearing a T-shirt bearing the words, “We support you, Kris,” a reference to Kristopher Belman, at 18 the only adult arrested.
The names of arrested minors, ages 15 to 17, were not released. All of the boys live in Lakewood, a suburb of 74,000 residents just north of Long Beach, although two recently transferred to nearby high schools.
At the time of the arrests, deputies said they had identified seven victims, one of them 10 years old at the time of the incident and the others 14, 15 or 16.
Law enforcement and school officials said the arrested boys were members of a loose-knit group called the Spur Posse that took its name from the San Antonio Spurs basketball team.
They said the mostly white group of 20 to 30 boys was not a typical gang, in that it was not territorial. But they said some of the boys had been arrested in the past for crimes like burglary, theft and assault.
“The group had a point system and each sexual encounter, the individual scored a point,” Surgent said.
“It was well known around the school, this point system. It didn’t matter whether the girls consented or not. If they consented, it was a point. If they didn’t consent, it was a point.”
He acknowledged that there was a backlash among some residents who were essentially arguing that “boys will be boys.”
Standing outside the sheriff’s station Thursday, the mother of one of the arrested boys defended her son and the others, saying the victims were promiscuous.
