Each student -- three juniors and one sophomore at Iraan High School whose ages range from 15 to 17 -- was cited Friday on a charge of hunting deer with illegal means and hunting deer in closed season, said Capt. Scott Davis of Texas Parks and Wildlife. He said that the closed-season charge was filed because the incident allegedly happened at night, when hunting is not allowed.
Both charges are Class C misdemeanors punishable by a fine up to $500.
Neither Davis nor Iraan-Sheffield Superintendent Kevin Allen would say what objects were used in the beating.
"The deer were in a location, a baseball field, where the deer could not escape," Allen said in a story for Wednesday's edition of the San Angelo Standard-Times. "And the boys, and I don't know if all the boys actually were involved in this, but they beat the deer to death."
The district is awaiting legal interpretation of the education code before deciding on any punishment, but Allen said that there have been "preliminary meetings with the parents that something is going to happen."
"We're very surprised that these kids would do something like this," Allen said. "These are good kids."
Iraan, a community of about 1,100, is about 115 miles southwest of San Angelo, just west of the Crockett County line.
