Two summer camp workers have quit and one of them is accused of harassing a 7-year-old camper and urging other children to kick him in the groin.
“I bring my child to this camp to be cared for by these camp counselors and he’s inciting violence against my child,” Carlyn Warner said in an interview. She is still struggling to understand last Monday’s alleged incident at the Lighthouse Point Park summer camp.
That’s the day Jose Cottes, a 20-year-old camp counselor, targeted her son, Ethan Washington, she said.
“He was swinging a yo-yo at Ethan’s face and he said that if Ethan blinked they could kick him in his privates,” Warner said.
A girl about Ethan’s age did the kicking but, Warner said, the 20-year-old counselor did the bullying.
All Ethan could think at the time was, “I didn’t deserve it.”
“For these kids that he considers his friends to beat up him because a counselor says so, who can he trust?” Warner said.
She called police after confronting her son’s counselor and a 16-year-old female counselor, who both cursed at her, she said.
“He never tried to apologize for what he did. He just came across as if he didn't care,” Warner said.
New Haven police arrested Cottes and charged him with risk of injury to a minor.
The director of the Parks, Recreation and Trees Department, which runs the camp, said both counselors quit before they could be fired.
Counselors go through proper anti-bullying training, the director said, and called the alleged behavior unacceptable.
Still Warner wants a personal apology and better structure at the camps.
“I think there should be an adult there, some kind of tiered system where there is an adult there at all times to help these kids make a decision," she said.
Ethan has returned to the camp but he says the kids are still teasing him and he wants to go to a different camp.
“Some people kept on talking about it and I didn't want to go back,” he said.
