CLEVELAND TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Five high school football stars in Pennsylvania have been cited after allegedly beating numerous animals to death and posing with their corpses.
The five teens are facing fines for illegally killing wild animals and then posting a picture with their kills on Instagram, according to WNEP.
An uncensored photo of the football players posing with the animals can be seen here.
The five area football players posing with baseball bats and dead animals: a snake, raccoon, frogs, opossums, and pigeons.
“I just don’t think it’s right there’s no reason to be going around and beating innocent animals and killing them. I just don’t think it’s right,” said Matt Mindler of Catawissa.
The teens were cited and face fines. Four of the five cited were members of Southern Columbia’s state championship football team who graduated earlier this month.
Blake Marks, Austin Knepp, Gabe Delbo, and Nick Becker helped lead the Southern Columbia Tigers To a state title in the fall.
Becker was WNEP’s Offensive Dream Team Player of the Year. Marks was also on the Dream Team.
Mark Kitchen, a football player from Danville, was also cited.
Jim Roth, the head football coach at Southern Columbia, said, “Some kids that are good kids … made a bad decision.”
He added that “Some of these kids are not even aware of all the laws as far as small animals.”
Some saw the behavior as “stupid,” others said it was more serious than that.
Mindler said, “I understand that to an extent but at the same time, I just don’t think you should be going out and killing living creatures like that.”
Calls to the wildlife conservation officer who cited the teens were not returned.
