DALTON, Ga. — A former assistant football and boys basketball coach at Northwest Whitfield High School says he is interviewing attorneys but had no other comment following his resignation from the school system after he was arrested for reportedly failing to report the sexual assault of a juvenile.

Lamar Cofield spoke briefly with a reporter Tuesday afternoon but said he wouldn’t have a comment until hiring an attorney.

According to a press release from Sheriff Scott Chitwood, Cofield was at a party and was told by a female student that she had been sexually assaulted. An incident report provided by the sheriff’s office on Tuesday quotes an individual whose name has been blacked out as saying a female juvenile said she went to the bathroom when another juvenile came into the bathroom and “would not let her leave, after asking multiple times.” The two “had gotten into a struggle” when she tried to leave the bathroom. The report quotes the individual as saying the female juvenile was pushed into the shower and raped and that she was “yelling for help but nobody came to help.”

The incident report said the individual said the girl confronted the father of the juvenile. The individual said the girl was told by someone (the name is blacked out) “not to say she was raped” by the juvenile. The individual said “she didn’t understand why (name blacked out) would say that or why no adults at the party came to help,” the report said.

The incident report lists the crimes as rape (strongarm) and false imprisonment. Juvenile criminal records are generally not accessible under the state’s Open Records Act, and calls to sheriff’s office Capt. Rick Swiney on Tuesday were not immediately returned.

 Cofield, 34, was arrested on Friday by the sheriff’s office and charged with failure to report suspected child abuse. As a paraprofessional and community coach at Northwest Whitfield High School, Cofield was what state law refers to as a “mandated reporter,” according to the state’s Office of the Child Advocate. Cofield, who was hired by the Whitfield school system in August of 2013, resigned from the school system on Friday, according to Whitfield County Schools Communications Specialist Eric Beavers.

“My understanding is he was charged last week and immediately resigned,” Beavers wrote in an emailed response to questions submitted by the Daily Citizen-News. “I don’t know the exact timeline, but it moved quickly at the end of last week.”

Northwest Principal Britt Adams declined to comment on if sheriff’s office representatives contacted him and deferred all questions to Beavers. Adams did confirm Cofield was a parapro and community coach, but declined to say what his specific duties included. 

Beavers said he couldn’t “discuss personnel discipline” when asked if Cofield had any disciplinary actions against him by the school system or if he had yearly performance evaluations. 

Both Beavers and Adams answered questions while away from their offices as Whitfield County Schools was closed on Tuesday. 

According to the press release from Chitwood, on Sept. 29 the family of a high school student reported she had been raped while attending a party on July 1. An investigation was begun by the sheriff’s office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Investigators found that five high school students attended a party at a residence in the Pleasant Grove area the night of July 1, where a male student lived, and alcohol “was being consumed by the kids at the party,” the press release said. It said the underage students “consumed alcohol” in the presence of an adult female, Ashley Turner, a relative to the student living at the residence, and she “consumed alcohol” with them.

According to the press release, Cofield came to the party and stayed for more than an hour. He “observed the students consuming alcohol.” A female student told him and Turner that she had been sexually assaulted.

Turner, 33, was charged with furnishing alcohol to persons under the age of 21. Phone calls to a number listed for Turner went unanswered on Tuesday.