ABC News: Butt Pat Could Get Boys Jail Time: "Two middle-school students in Oregon are facing possible time in a juvenile jail and could have to register as sex offenders for smacking girls on the rear end at school."
As is pointed out in the ABC article and elsewhere, there's no question that what these kids did was inappropriate. But if adolescent ass-grabbing is a sex crime, 80% of the boys in the Wilbur Wright Junior High School class of 1969 -- of which I am a member -- would have criminal records. Whatever happened to detentions? Or getting slapped in the face by the grabbee?
Bob Rhubart: Humor. Opinion. Comment. Rants. Neurosis. Sometimes all at once.
1 comment:
True Story
This just happened to my best friend and her son last week.
My friends' 15 year old dreamt of a career in the military and asked his mother to send him to a summer camp at a famous military academy in Texas. It was quite expensive, but she got a second job and saved the $5,000 to send him to the 4 week camp.
Two days before "graduation", her son got into a fist fight with a 14 year old. According to the school officials both boys were equally at fault, but the 14 year old got a bloody lip and was taken to the emergency room were he received a single stitch. The emergency room doctor asked the 14 year old if he was going to press charges, and the boy, humiliated by the fact that he lost the fight, said "yes". The hospital summoned the police who charged my friends' son with a felony, 'Assault on a Minor'. Officers then came to the campgrounds, arrested the boy, and took him away in handcuffs in front of the entire camp. My friend was called by the camp officials and told her son was in jail. She never received a call from the police. The mother of the 14 year old called the police and asked them to drop the charges, but was told that she couldn't since she was calling from out of state. My friend immediately (the next morning), flew down to Texas from Cleveland where she was allowed to talk to her son for an hour through a plexiglass window, but officials could not release him to her custody until he was seen by the judge the following day. It turned out that the police erroneously(stupidly)charged her fifteen year old with an adult crime and the charges will be dropped, although it may take a little while for the case to be completely resolved, and until then he is officially on probation with the Texas juvenile justice department. Fortunately, he has been allowed to return to Cleveland while still on probation. He was able to make it back to camp in time to participate in the graduation ceremony and the applause of his fellow campers. The 14 year old, on the other hand, returned to mocking and jeers, "Snitches get stitches".
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