Posted on 02/17/2006 12:22:42 AM PST by conservative in nyc
What started as a version of the schoolyard game of dodge ball has apparently become a legal ordeal for a 12-year-old girl and her family.
Complaints by the parents of a student injured during a game at Hermosa Elementary School prompted authorities to charge Brittney Schneiders with battery.
Five other students also accused of battery stemming from the May 8 playground game opted to take probation, but Brittney Schneiders and her parents refused.
"I don't think I did (commit a crime)," Brittney told NBC4's Mary Parks. "I thought I was just playing a dodge ball game. I never thought it would come up to this level."
For seven years, Schneiders made the honor roll and received good citizenship awards, but the teen soccer star is in a legal mess over a game of "Wall Ball."
"Wall Ball" is a game where a team throws or kicks a ball in an attempt to hit other players.
Schneiders kicked a ball that hit a boy who wore braces, giving him a fat lip.
The district attorney, probation and sheriff's departments agreed with the school that the boy was repeatedly and unnecessarily hit with the ball and they filed charges against the students.
But Brittney's father, Ray Schneiders, believes the law has gone overboard.
"We are not parents who see our princess can do no wrong," Ray Schneiders said. "It is all about power and the manic egos of those who possess and abuse it."
David Hidalgo, supervising deputy district attorney for San Bernardino County, told NBC4 that although it is illegal for his office to discuss specific cases, he notes that there is always the option of community service or a letter of apology to resolve a case.
"When parents refuse to cooperate under those circumstances and they refuse to hold a minor accountable for their criminal conduct and insist they go to court to refute the allegations, then we have no choice," Hidalgo said.
The district attorney's office also is frustrated by not being able to legally and publicly divulge all the facts in the case, Parks reported.
The case is set for trial in March.
Twenty years ago the kids would have settled their differences on their own and laughed about it later. Then the adults had to barge in and blow it all out of proportion. Numbskulls.
we used to play a rather nasty wall-ball variant called "suicide"
the Nanny State would have conniptions were it played today.
we thought it was great.
and we all *volunteered* -willingly and in full knowledge of the rules- to play.
This is silly. We used to play this game a lot when I was a kid, and I took plenty of hits in the face and head, none of which hurt a bit.
This is silly. We used to play this game a lot when I was a kid, and I took plenty of hits in the face and head, none of which hurt a bit.
This is si... wait a minute - did I post to this thread already...?
This is silly. We used to play this game a lot when I was a kid, and I took plenty of...
Oh, never mind.
Of course there is the politically incorrect "smear the queer". I can't imagine what the school would do to participants now.
Beyond silly, this is insanity. Everyone played dodge ball when I was in school and even the sissies didn't cry and complain.
I feel sorry for the youngster with the braces and the fat lip. He may never recover from what his parents have done. Parents wonder why their children are picked on, but the answer can sometimes be as simple as the parents being too protective/involved in the child's business.
If there was a reason the boy shouldn't have been playing "wall ball" then the parents should have said something PRIOR to the incident.
I used to play wall ball when I was 13 at the boy's club. It was called killer ball then.
No throwing just kicking. I grew up in a city where soccer and rugby where the big highschool sports so our guys could kick serious smoke.
After an hour of that you left the boy's club after closing at 11:00 and played a round of contact frisby until 12:00 and then went home and did your homework.
Kids today are being trained to be soft.
IF five kids pummeled him, then it could have been a charge of mob action.
I can't recall the rules of smear-the-queer, but I do recall having the natal stuffing knocked out of me playing it... and coming back for more.
it seems, sometimes, that somewhere down the line we lost the vital concept that boys who cry when they get hurt playing rough boy games are p***ies.
damn shame.
and, of course, there was "chicken-fighting"
lordy... kids today are being wussed up non-stop.
"...hold a minor accountable for their criminal conduct..."
Criminal conduct eh?
If that's "criminal" conduct half the boys in school 30 years ago would have been locked up...
What morons.
Boys are being turned into girlie men in public schools these days.
The defendant makes it sound like a dozen kids each acting alone.
The prosecutor makes it sound like eleven against one.
I wonder where the truth lies.
1) This was a normal game of dodgeball, but one little pansy whimpered to his hovering mother, and in today's climate of institutionalized sissiness it became a criminal prosecution.
2) There really was a mob of nasty little brutes who ganged up on an unpopular boy and caused him significant injury. In which case, the kids should be disciplined by the school, and the teacher who was supposed to be supervising the little ticks is the one who should be getting hauled into court.
-ccm
Criminal conduct? I'm speechless.
the parents smell money, the lure of the 15 minutes of fame, the existence of an ambitious prosecutor or ambulance-chasing lawyer...
there are a goodly number of possibilities.
however, if our society had not lost the vital concept of boyish toughness, this nonsense would have been laughed scornfully out of existence.
And he probablly still sleeps in a crib.
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