11 Teen Lacrosse Players Ordered to Surrender in NY

Eleven high school lacrosse players in Syracuse, New York, were on Tuesday given 48 hours to turn themselves in or face kidnapping charges in an alleged incident that the local district attorney calls "hazing on steroids." Authorities say last Thursday, a group of Westhill High School boys' lacrosse players decided to prank five younger members of the team, CNN reports. They allegedly told the younger boys they were all going to get something to eat after watching a lacrosse game at another school together, but instead took them to a "remote location" where other teens, dressed in black and holding what appeared to be at least one gun and at least one knife, jumped out of the woods, pretending to be kidnappers, LocalSYR reports.

At that point, four of the younger boys managed to escape, but authorities say the older boys grabbed one of the younger boys, tied him up, put a pillowcase over his head, and put him in the trunk of a vehicle. He was left in a wooded area for some length of time, Syracuse.com reports. "There was a period of time where he thought he was going to be abandoned in the middle of nowhere," the DA says, but he was eventually brought back home. The incident was captured on video, and the DA says the video makes it clear that "some of the individuals found it amusing." The rest of the varsity team's season has been canceled in light of the incident.

"I've seen the videotape of what happened to this young man. It is not a rite of passage. It is not a trivial matter. I don't know how long this young man will be affected by what happened to him," the DA says. Anyone who turns himself in by the deadline will face only a misdemeanor charge of unlawful imprisonment and will be tried in family court so a criminal record won't follow them for life. But "if you don't—if you're tougher than me, you're a gambler and you're going to play the odds, you don't think you're going to get caught—trust me, the men and women of the Onondaga County Sheriff's Department are going to identify you," the DA said, and those teens will be charged as adults with felony kidnapping. (More hazing stories.)