Homicide is nuts, and again my response would be "Had this occured in any other contact sport would it even be a issue? Had it not been a punch but a baseball would homicide be getting considered by anyone?"
Accidents happen, it sucks, but it happens in every activity.
It's not nuts, at least, not they described it in the article...which says they are investigating the death as a homicide. It also says that there was no evidence so far that it was a homicide.
Think about it from the family's point of view. A 16 year old, bright student, doesn't have a history of trouble, is killed because he's been because he's been hit in the head a bunch of times.
The cops can either shrug their shoulders and say yep, dead kid with a smashed up head, oh well, and tell the parents to get his body.
Or, they can investigate to see if anything went wrong, to make sure his death was only an accident.
A homicide investigation that shows the death was an accident also clears the names of all of the teenagers invovled.
I think the cops did the right thing.