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Vivian A. Samuels A 12-year-old girl who struck a school safety agent shortly before the agent died on Friday night has been charged with harassment and resisting arrest, the authorities said. She was later released from police custody. The girl, whose name the authorities did not release, will appear in Family Court in Brooklyn on Monday, when officials from the city's Probation Department will decide whether further legal action will be taken against her, said Laurence Busching, the chief of the Family Court Division of the City Law Department. On Friday night, Vivian A. Samuels, 56, was escorting the girl...

LAKELAND, Fla. - A sheriff's deputy trying to stop an erratic driver fired at the car when it lurched toward him, not realizing a 12-year-old girl was behind the wheel, officials said. Neither she nor her 6-year-old brother were hit. Deputy Chris Hillsgrove and a colleague pursued the car Sunday, eventually blocking it between their two patrol cars. When the deputies exited their vehicles, the car lurched forward and backward into the two cars, then drove toward Hillsgrove, Polk County Sheriff's spokeswoman Michal Shanley said. "He, fearing for his life, fired several shots at the oncoming vehicle and managed to...

An 18-year-old woman accused of pretending to be twin 12-year-old boys and simultaneously dating two adolescent girls will undergo a psychiatric evaluation to determine her competency to stand trial in San Mateo County Superior Court. Lakesia Michelle Mason pleaded not guilty in March to 13 counts of lewd acts upon a child under the age of 14 for her alleged relationships with a 13-year-old girl and an 11-year-old girl. She denied the special allegations of substantial sexual conduct with a child under the age of 14 and allegations that the offenses were committed in more than one jurisdiction and that...

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. -- A 12-year-old boy has been charged with murdering and raping a male preschooler, a prosecutor said Tuesday. (The boy) had been raped at least twice and beaten several times between Dec. 11 and Dec. 17, while he was left in the care of individuals outside his immediate family.

third of 12-year-old boys in the Gaza strip want to become martyrs for the Palestinian cause. Are they victims of Israeli oppression or their own side's propaganda? Ed O'Loughlin reports. A Friday afternoon in Gaza City and a Palestinian militant group is staging a passing-out parade for its newest graduates. On a dirt soccer pitch, 24 masked recruits of the Popular Resistance Committee go through a program of song, march and very ragged foot drill. Some clutch real rifles, others wooden cut-outs. The crowd of onlookers is appreciative, but smaller than it might have been. There are wanted men...

BENTONVILLE -- A 12-year-old home-schooled boy choked back emotion Monday as he apologized to three school bus drivers for shooting out windows of their buses with a BB gun on Aug. 19 in Siloam Springs. Circuit Judge Jay Finch told the boy to apologize to each driver after Finch convicted him of a felony terroristic act, shooting objects at moving vehicles with passengers, which is a Class B felony. The boy, whose name is being withheld because of his age, will spend the next six months on supervised probation, Finch decided. The boy admitted to shooting only one of the...

Sept. 9— Who really failed Joseph Daniel Scruggs? Daniel was only 12 years old when he hanged himself in the closet of his bedroom on Jan. 2, 2002. By all accounts, he was troubled. Weighing only 63 pounds, he was bullied mercilessly at school. His small size, tendency to dress in shabby clothes, poor hygiene and strong body odor made him easy prey for ridicule by his classmates at Washington Middle School in Meriden, Conn. The bullying was so severe that Daniel feared going to school and was absent 44 days in the months before his death. And when he...

Mitchell's father 83, described himself as a voyeur and author of two volumes about his personal theology that include explicit sexual content, acknowledged showing his son pictures of gentalia at the age of seven or eight. The father said he believes that his erotic literature contributed to an after school episode of indecent exposure as a teenager. A few weeks in juvenille detension, bouts with alcohol and drugs--including an LSD trip that put him in the hospital--were other contributing factors, the elder Mitchell said. He added that he suspected that Mitchell was abused in daycare. Calling himself 'too implusive as...