Sounds like people are reading far more into this incomplete article than is actually there. Projecting what they think must have happened, or what has happened to them. He only had a scrape, didn’t go to the hospital, it was just a bandaid. I guess people must have more information than just this article. Hey, it must have been no big deal, right? And if he had pulled out a gun (then or later in retribution), what if it was just a little flesh wound? No big deal.
Yes, violence must be good. Let’s support it, but only if it’s women being violent against men, of course.
One would think the police would drop the charge of aggravated assault against her if it was self defense.
A whole lot of emotional baggage brought by the posters on this thread. If the facts are as stated, yes, the activity was wrong and should be punished. However, this boy is not responsible for what was done to many of us growing up, the Stanford rape case, or the current occupant of the White House. I would like to think cooler and calmer heads would prevail before we all rush to judgment.
Unless this was attempted rape, this should have ended up is with one boy in the principal’s office, being disciplined by the school. Now there will be two kids with juvenile records…one for sexual battery and one for aggravated assault.
There are no possible intentions that would be acceptable for a high school boy to lift a girls dress in a classroom.
The article said he was treated by the school nurse. Unless the school employs a plastic surgeon as a nurse, or the school is so incomptetant that they don’t send a severely injured boy for further treatment, then it seems pretty logical that he received a minor injury. Certainly not anything approaching “manslaughter”.
No one said his actions were acceptable, or hers homicidal. But yes, intent does matter. Was there a reasonable fear of physical assault, or of harassment instead? What was she doing with the scissors? On such legalities entire cases rest. Blanket judgments without all the facts are unwarranted. I too wish this could have been dealt with at a lower level, as do the kids, in all likelihood.
Talk about projecting–a nick that necessitated a bandaid has been elevated to eyes plucked out, arteries severed, dismemberment, and manslaughter.
Sound to me that she met his assault at just the right level needed. No need to speculate what she might have done; she didn’t. She NICKED him. in response to HIS actions.
None of us were there, and the news article doesn’t give any great details, but I can imagine what might have happened. Perhaps the girl had the scissors in her had when he tried to lift her dress, so she attacked without even thinking about the being in her hand. Perhaps she hoped he would back off after the first “swipe” in his general direction, and only stabbed him after he persisted.
I suspect one of the students (or a parent), insisted on charges, and either the school decided to report both students in order to be even-handed, or the other student or parent chose to press charges as well.
IMHO this story is not newsworthy. That includes both the boy’s actions that deserve an “appropriate” punishment, as well as her response that is debatably excessive. Not every incident needs to be dissected.
The problem, separate from lack of detail, is that the outcome could be that the boy could feel like a victim instead of an instigator and the girl comes off as overly agressive and neither learns the inappropriateness of their relative actions. These are lessons that used to be learned in elementary school. If there were others in the classroom it won’t take long to sort out.
@RandyErika this happens many, MANY times a day throughout the country. An extremely small percentage of cases ever make it into a report let alone the news.
The only reason this is news is because the victim chose to fight back.
Are you expecting us to believe that this was the very first time this teenage boy had pulled up a girl’s skirt? He never harassed girls in elementary school or middle school, but then just recently in high school he suddenly got the notion that physical sexual harassment was the thing to do? If, as is much more likely, he was a serial harasser, then all the other times of his harassing girls didn’t make him feel like an instigator, or if they did it didn’t stop him from harassing again.
“Out of curiosity, is there any adult poster who would react this way if the event happened at work or on a city street? I would not unless I truly felt my life was threatened…”
If I truly felt my life was threatened, I’m pretty sure I’d try to do more than scratch the attackers hand. I hope I’d be able to do more than that, anyway.
If this happened in a classroom, it means the boys have a sense of immunity for a normalized action, ie., it happens in the corridors (outside of class and adult supervision) and has happened before. Not necessarily this boy but others.
No one knows how they react if this happened. Most girls totally freeze in embarrassment.
If this girl had a pair of scissors in her hand the situation is different than if she took the time to find scissors. But no matter what, this is not a joke. Girls aren’t there for boys amusement and their humiliation or sexual objectification shouldn’t be considered anyone’s amusement.
I agree that bringing the police into it is excessive but if the school is used to extremely aggressive behavior then it may be part often school culture.
A few months ago I read a ya novel titledMoxie which I thought, at the time, over the top. Then I started reading news/magazine articles on the topic and I realized that it really wasn’t and that at some schools it might even have been worse.
I am going to bet that there are a fair amount of males who if present when that was done to their wife, girlfriend, daughter or mother would have inflicted more damage than a scissor nic. And we likely would not have read about it either.
Seems to me that it is irrelevant how any of us would have responded. We are not her. I would not presume that my chosen course of action would be superior to hers. We have no facts relative to this young girl’s history. Was this the first time he did this to her? Was she the target of regular bullying at school? Was she ever assaulted in the past? Or was she simply a badass whose life experiences taught her to fight back and fend for herself? All these things could have an influence on how a person responds in a situation that involves public ridicule. And no doubt you might be surprised by how someone responds to your “jokes” or “pranks.”
So in my view he assumed that risk when he stepped out of bounds.
Clearly we can see from this thread that responses would differ. There are a lot of variables that would cause some women to do nothing at all and cause some to fight back. And of course there are those who would simply laugh it off with a pat on their back about their own ability to handle these types of situations - because, well you know, they understand men and what motivates them much better than the rest of us do. All the while being in total denial that these actions suggest a real lack of respect for the recipient. You don’t publicly ridicule or embarrass anyone you care about or respect.
I strongly doubt this type of young man would have stood idly by while a classmate did this to his girlfriend, sister or mother.
I was subjected to bullying all through grade and middle school. It is very isolating. I don’t understand why the teacher didn’t keep control in his/her classroom and prevent the situation described or immediately get things under control.
As incomplete as the article is, I don’t see the girl as over-reacting.
@HarvestMoon1 wrote “I am going to bet that there are a fair amount of males who if present when that was done to their wife, girlfriend, daughter or mother would have inflicted more damage than a scissor nic. And we likely would not have read about it either.”
Well yes if you actually kill someone you are going to likely be charged with something quite serious. But for the incident described in the article I was thinking more along the lines of a bloody nose.
I sympathize with the husband, and would probably do the same, but the point is I doubt he actually intended to kill the intruder. It’s equally easy to stab someone’s jugular or an eye with scissors by accident during a chase
