Football

Family Seeks Apology After Football Player Allegedly Attacked with Heat-Rub Cream

The teen and his mother decided not to press charges, but they are still waiting for an apology.

A family is seeking an apology after a high school football player attacked an opposing player with heat-rub cream during a game earlier this month.

Leslie Bess said a player from Bishop Mora Salesian High School wearing a No.16 jersey intentionally rubbed cream, similar to IcyHot, on her son Angel Salazar's face during a play while facing La Canada High School on the field.

"A boy from the other team stuck his hand under [Salazar's] helmet and put some stuff on his face and in his eyes and it went all over his chest," Bess said. "I saw him hunched over, walking to the sidelines and I knew that something malicious had just happened."

Kristina Kalb, the athletic director at La Canada High School, says that she spoke to referees after the incident and they did not stop the game or investigate on the field.

Salesian's principal contacted the principal at La Canada on Friday over the incident, according to Kalb.

"They had a conversation and during that conversation Salesian did apologize for the incident and indicate that yes indeed their player had sat out the game last night," Kalb said.

Salazar went to urgent care following the incident, but has since resumed playing.

Salazar and his mother decided not to press charges, but they are still waiting for an apology. The decision not to press charges, Bess said, was her son's.

"With tears in his eyes he told me 'I don't want to press charges,'" Bess said. "I think from the beginning they should have taken responsibility and apologized. As a mother, that is exactly what I would have made my son do."

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