A Ukiah teen has been hospitalized after he was injured while being branded by a group of his friends.
Mendocino County Sheriff's Capt. Kurt Smallcomb says the 17-year-old boy — a senior at Ukiah High School — had asked his friends to burn a metal star into his chest.
The students gathered in the parking lot of a shopping center Wednesday during their lunch break, heated the brand with a butane torch and pressed it into the teen's body.
Authorities say the brand went too deep, and the boy's friends recognized they had made a mistake and took him to a hospital.
Smallcomb says the brand was intended to express pride in being from Northern California.
He says the students who branded the boy may face prosecution.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/03/20/state/n220728D54.DTL&type=business
Mendocino County Sheriff's Capt. Kurt Smallcomb says the 17-year-old boy — a senior at Ukiah High School — had asked his friends to burn a metal star into his chest.
The students gathered in the parking lot of a shopping center Wednesday during their lunch break, heated the brand with a butane torch and pressed it into the teen's body.
Authorities say the brand went too deep, and the boy's friends recognized they had made a mistake and took him to a hospital.
Smallcomb says the brand was intended to express pride in being from Northern California.
He says the students who branded the boy may face prosecution.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/03/20/state/n220728D54.DTL&type=business
