A high school football player in Lebanon County for an incident who took off an opponent's helmet and hit him with it twice during a skirmish, is also under investigation in for an incident in Berks County where he threw a football violently at a teammate's chest in practice, according to the Lebanon County Daily News.
Hamburg High School senior quarterback/safety Joseph Cominsky made headlines on Sept. 6 when Hamburg (Pa.) High School and Annville-Cleona were involved against each other in a game and a fracas broke out, leading to Cominsky bashing lineman Josh Hartman over the head with his own helmet.
Per league rules, Cominsky was ejected and then suspended for the team's next game, and now reports indicate that Berks County District Attorney John Adams is also opening up an investigation into Cominsky after the video of him throwing a football at a kid's chest in practice has emerged.
"We have been provided a copy of the video and we are investigating this incident," Adams stated in an email to the Reading Eagle on Tuesday.
A mother of a former teammate of Cominsky provided the video footage to NBC-10 in Philadelphia, and in the video Cominsky is trying to hit the person in the chest by throwing a football as hard as he can while the person holds something in front of their face while standing against a wall. Hamburg coach Joe Sinkovich also appears to be directing Cominsky to hit the player in the chest in the video.
The video of that particular incident can be seen here.
According to NBC-10, Karen Hoagland, the mother of a former player at Hamburg who taped the video footage on his cell phone, obtained the video and turned it over to the news affiliate.
"He told him to throw the ball at the boy's chest or stomach, knowing how fast the quarterback throws," Hoagland told the station, according to the Lebanon County Daily News. "He allowed four more balls to be thrown until it hit the kid. To me, he's putting kids' lives at risk every day when something like that is allowed to go on."
Hoagland said she had no intentions of turning the video over to the public until she saw the other incident that occurred when Cominsky hit the Annville player twice with his helmet, with his second shot nailing Hartman square in the head as he was lying on his back.
South Annville Township police Chief Ben Sutcliffe announced on Sept. 10 that he'd opened a criminal investigation against Cominsky for the incident but it should take a while before it concludes.
Hoagland told NBC-10 that she believes the incident occurred during the football game because Hamburg's head coach encourages such behavior, which the second video laid credence to.
"I think if the coaches would be held more accountable for what happened, this stuff wouldn't happen on the field," she told NBC.
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