Remember them? Sausage-hazing gang of firefighters indicted in Texas
A grand jury has decided to indict eight people on sexual assault and tampering with evidence charges after a hazing incident involving a volunteer fire department recruit.
Back in April it was discovered that five volunteer firefighters had sexually assaulted a recruit with a broom and then a chorizo sausage, while a girlfriend of one of them recorded video of the incident.
Volunteer Fire Chief Gavin Satterfield and Assistant Chief William Getzendaner didn’t take part, but reportedly laughed at the video and told the fireifghters to keep quiet about the incident.
From KXAS-TV (click here to read indictment)
Top Row L-R: Blake Jerold Tucker, Alec Chase Miller, Keith Edward Wisakowsky, Gavin Lawrence Satterfield.
Bottom Row L-R: William Hamilton Getzendaner, III, Preston Thomas Peyrot, Brittany Leanne Parten, Casey Joe Stafford.
Previous coverage of the incident
Stephen Young, Dallas Observer:
Ellis County called in the Texas Rangers after the firefighter trainee first reported the assault on March 31. The trainee said Keith Wisakowsky, 27; Casey Stafford, 30; Alec Miller, 28; Blake Tucker, 19; and Preston Peyrot, 19, first attempted to sodomize him with a broom handle before settling on using a link of chorizo that was sitting in the fridge. According to the Rangers report, Tucker and Stafford held the trainee down while Wisakowsky inserted the still-wrapped sausage into the trainee. Wisakowsky then cut the sausage out of the package, but it broke up when he tried to assault the trainee with it again.
The trainee was then let go, he told the Rangers, and he crawled to bathroom, threw up and showered. While the trainee was cleaning up, someone took his clothes from the restroom. When the trainee came out of the restroom wearing a towel, Tucker took it, the trainee says, and he was forced to scramble to his truck naked to get some shorts.
Naheed Rajwani, Dallas Morning News:
Chief Gavin Satterfield, 31, and Assistant Chief Billy Getzendaner, 35, are charged with tampering with a witness, a first-degree felony.
Authorities said the pair knew about the assault but instructed the victim and five accused firefighters not to talk about it.
Getzendaner told the firefighters to “keep their mouths shut” and delete the video because law enforcement officials would get involved if they knew about it, according to his arrest affidavit.
The ESD 6 Board, which governs the department, unanimously voted to suspended Satterfield and Getzendaner at an emergency meeting held in April. The board also voted unanimously voted that all property, keys and radios be returned to the district and to bar Satterfield and Getzendaner from the property.
At the same meeting, the board’s legal council, attorney Clay Hinds, said the board members were “shocked and appalled by the allegations made about the volunteer firefighters.”
When Hinds was asked when were the other five volunteers were suspended, Hinds stated that Satterfield and Getzendaner suspended the firefighters upon arrest before they were arrested as well. Hinds added the board was not aware of any misconduct that might have happened at the department prior to the arrests.
