Coach charged with intentionally injuring autistic player
A youth baseball coach has been charged with offering a seven-year-old boy $25 to intentionally injure an autistic player on his team to keep him from playing in a game. The eight-year-old youth was injured and didn’t play in the game. Police said the coach thought his team had a better chance of winning the game if the youth couldn’t play.
According to police, Mark Reed Downs Jr., 27, of 217 Main St., Dunbar, was coaching the Falcons, at the R.W. Clark Little League Field in North Union Township on June 27 when he allegedly offered a boy on his team money to injure the autistic youth. That player hit the alleged victim in the left ear and the groin area with the ball, police said.
Downs is charged with two counts of criminal solicitation to commit aggravated assault, corruption of minors, criminal conspiracy to commit simple assault and recklessly endangering another person.
Court paperwork filed in the case has the names of the alleged victim and the 7-year-old boy who allegedly intentionally hit him with a baseball blacked out.
That 7-year-old, who Trooper Thomas Broadwater interviewed on July 8, said that prior to the game, “Downs told him that he would give him $25 to hit (the alleged victim) in his face with a baseball,” according to the criminal complaint.
The boy also said that, “Mr. Downs said he didn’t want (the alleged victim) to play because he wanted to win.”
Police said the boy acknowledged that he intentionally hit the autistic youth with the baseball, and said Downs also promised him $25 if his father would sign him up for fall baseball.
Police said the boy told the alleged victim’s mother the night of the game that Downs asked him to hit her son.
Police said the mother went to the state police station in Uniontown on July 1 and reported what happened.
Police said she told them that she put her son in the T-ball league to help him gain some confidence and socialize with other children. Police said the mother told them she had been having ongoing problems with Downs about the lack of playing time her son has been getting.
The mother, according to the affidavit, told police that “Downs looks for excuses (to) not play (her son) because he is not as talented as the other kids.”
Broadwater noted in the affidavit that the league has a policy that every child must play a minimum of three innings per game.
On the evening of June 27, the mother told police she took her son and his brother to the night’s scheduled game. Prior to the game, the mother said her son was tossing a baseball with the 7-year-old. A short time later, her son came to her and said the boy hit him in the left ear with the ball.
The mother sent her son back out to the field, but he returned again, and said the same boy threw the ball into his groin area.
After the mother talked to the 7-year-old, he reportedly told her that Downs told him to hit the boy.
When the mother confronted Downs, police said he denied doing anything wrong.
She took her son to the Uniontown Hospital Emergency Room for treatment, and a copy of the medical report indicates that a doctor said both the boy’s left ear and his groin area were red and swollen.
Broadwater said when he interviewed the alleged victim at the barracks, the boy said after he was hit, Downs told him to “take the night off.”
Police also interviewed the 7-year-old boy’s father. Broadwater indicated that the father said as he and Downs were carrying bags to the car after the June 27 game, Downs told him he did something “pretty ignorant.” Downs reportedly went on to admit to the father that he told the 7-year-old he would pay him to disable the alleged victim prior to the game, police said.
Broadwater said he consulted with the district attorney’s office and the 7-year-old boy would not be prosecuted. He also said that he believes what Downs allegedly did is “a single, isolated thing” that did not happen before.
Downs was arraigned before Magisterial District Judge Deberah L. Kula and released on unsecured bond. He faces a preliminary hearing on July 28 at 9:15 a.m. in Kula’s North Union Township office.
According to Associated Press, Eric Forsythe, the president of the R.W. Clark Youth Baseball League, said 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.
Downs had two daughters on the T-ball team, Forsythe said.