Maryland authorities are investigating allegations of a fight club at a sleep-away summer camp run by the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington.
Eight camp counselors were fired for their role in having boys between the ages of 10 and 12 participate in “inappropriate fighting activities” at Camp Ernest W. Brown, a seven-week summer program in St. Mary’s County that is jointly run by the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington and D.C. police, according to Eric Liley, a spokesman for the youth club.
The fighting was discovered by camp managers in early August, and they immediately notified Maryland State Police, fired the counselors and shut down the camp for the rest of the summer, Liley said.
One of the counselors, Shane Baptiste, 19, was charged Aug. 20 with second-degree assault, according to Maryland State Police Sgt. Steven Koch and online court records. Koch said that there are two former counselors younger than 18 who may be charged as juveniles.
Liley said the youth club thinks the fighting was a “small and isolated” incident that affected fewer than 10 campers. He said that Baptiste is the only adult the club is aware of who allegedly knew about the fighting.
Baptiste could not be reached for comment Monday evening.
“[The Boys and Girls Club] does not condone behavior that puts the youth we serve in harm’s way,” the organization said in a statement released Sept. 21.
“These are very serious allegations, and we are committing ourselves to a full investigation of the Camp Brown incidents,” Rynthia Rost, board chair of the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington, said in the statement.
In addition to the criminal investigation, the youth club has hired two Washington lawyers, Philip Khinda and James Moorhead of Steptoe & Johnson, to investigate the matter.
“We’re committed to investigating the reports of a fight club this summer at Camp Brown and hope that anyone who has information about that will come forward and share it with us,” Khinda said.
Camp Brown has operated for 75 years in Scotland, Md., and hosts about 300 children between the ages of 7 and 13 each summer. The Boys and Girls Club said in a statement that it is partnering with the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing to provide counseling for the affected campers and their families, and plans to review its policies for training and supervising counselors.