A tiny Texas town has been torn apart, as ten high school students have been arrested in conjunction with the sexual assaults of members of the school's basketball, football and baseball teams.

This week, La Vernia High School's Alejandro Ibarra and Robert Olivarez, Jr., both 17, were charged with sexual assault, as was 18-year-old Dustin Norman. La Vernia police report six other students, all minors, have been arrested, as well. The San Antonio Current reports at least 25 victims have come forward, though its believed there are more—and more arrests—to come.

Norman, Olivarez and two others are accused of holding down a 16-year-old who was moving from the junior varsity to varsity football team, and sodomizing him with a carbon-dioxide tank. “The victim struggled to stop the assault, but was overpowered by the four suspects and pinned down where he could not move,” authorities report.

The alleged incidents took place between 2015 and this year but, as the investigation widens, more horror stories are coming to light: “Kids were holding them down in the locker rooms, there was a lookout at the door watching for coaches not to come," one mother told Fox San Antonio.

"They hold them down and stick various items up their rectum... Coke bottles, deodorant bottles, steel pipes, baseball bats, and broomsticks.”

While the school has declined to comment on the investigation, football coach Chris Taber, also La Vernia's athletic director, released a statement stating administrators would "continue to implement measures providing additional safety and security for all students.”

Sadly, but perhaps not surprisingly, many in the town of just 1,400 are siding with the accused.

“Some kids, mostly athletes, are calling the victims ‘rats and snitches,’” a student told the Daily Beast. “A lot of people are saying they feel bad for [the accused], that they didn’t do anything too extreme.”

Some suspects are declaring their innocence, as well: Before his arrest Wednesday, Ibarra defended Olivarez and Norman on Facebook. "These two didn't take apart [sic] of it. They didn't do anything... I was with them every day and we were never involved in this stupid shit!"

After posting bail, he wrote, “We are innocent. Watch and see!”

The same day, Father Stan Fiuk called for mercy and forgiveness for the accused. "Our society doesn't want to see something wrong. When something wrong happens, we want to crucify them," said Fiuk, who preaches at St. Ann’s Catholic Church. "This is a little bit hypocritical... These children need mercy and we have to learn to be merciful because they are victims of the sick society."

Shannon Kosub, St. Ann’s director of religious education, said she hoped "true Christians will show true mercy to everyone involved and will reach out to show love."

It's not clear what aid Kosub or Fiuk would offer to the victims, though. Or how they would address the epidemic of toxic masculinity that persecutes homosexuals and uses rape to establish dominance among young men.

Of course, the La Vernia situation is hardly an isolated one: Parents of students at Lake Zurich school district in Illinois filed a lawsuit this year, claiming officials knew athletes had been urinated on and forced to perform oral sex on each other on as part of a hazing ritual.

In March 2016, three varsity high school football players in Pennsylvania were charged with raping a teammate as part of something called “no gay Thursday.” That same year, three Tennessee basketball players were accused of holding down a 15-year-old and sodomizing him with a pool stick.

Maybe politicians and school officials should stop worrying about fictitious attacks by transgender students and address the real crisis. Just a thought.