Reader’s note: This story is satirical in nature and published in a spoof issue.

Unarmed Police Department officers rescued GW’s beloved mascot, Hippo, from the basement of the Marvin Center yesterday morning, where he had been imprisoned and tortured for more than six months.

Federal investigators described Hippo’s situation as “Gitmo-esque.”

The Buzzkill reported Hippo’s disappearance in October, but University leaders responded with a massive PR campaign to hide their genocidal plan to exterminate the endangered “student life” mascot. In an exclusive interview, Hippo said that he was chained to the wall of a closet in the Marvin Center basement and forced to undergo daily beatings at the hand of George.

“He kept saying things like ‘Who’s the official mascot now, bitch’ while trying to puncture my outer shell,” Hippo said. “When I say that they deflated me, I’m not speaking metaphorically.”

Hippo was first lured into the closet last August by a low-level administrator who promised the mascot that a “crazy student life party only for unofficial mascots” was going on there.

“It appears that Hippo was routinely beaten and tortured in a way that would make Jack Bauer uncomfortable,” Attorney General Lando Calrissian told reporters. “Whoever was behind this is one sick motherfucker.”

He was released periodically when The Buzzkill published articles about his demise, but a beaming University President Steamin’ Krapp paraded the mascot around campus with a gun to his head – which he acquired just to make UPD chief Dolores Wantsaglock jealous. The University also combated the articles by creating lame T-shirts saying “The hippo is alive and well.”

“I was barely alive, and certainly not well,” Hippo said of the T-shirts. “I can’t believe they were so cruel,”

Calrissian said investigators were tipped off by a Marvin Center employee who heard whimpering coming from the closet. The employee said he also heard a voice repeatedly saying, “It rubs the lotion on or it gets the hose.” The voice was later identified as belonging to Assistant Vice President Hellin’ Cole Slawney.

“Weekends were the worst,” Hippo said, his plastic blue eyes swelling with highly acidic hippo tears. “I was forced to go to Order of the Sheep knitting parties, women’s basketball games, Sigma Upsilon Kappa fundraisers.”

Hippo then broke down, unable to continue.

Hippo said that his only solace during his ordeal came from former University President Stole Your Trachtenbucks, who periodically snuck in through the window to comfort Hippo late at night.

“It was awful,” Trachtenbucks said through wracked sobs. “All the poor guy ever wanted to do was remake Foggy Bottom in the image of his gigantic ego, and they destroyed him for it.”

Trachtenbucks said that he and Hippo plan to move to Florida and start a family of eccentric Jewish quasi-hippos.