What’s a spitball? 
Yeah, that’s my whole point…and I do agree with you KneadToKnow…where do you draw the line? Maybe there is nothing better they could do, but I’m just exclaiming that it sucks. 
I think there should be less a penalty for the kid though, and more for the parents.
Well, that’s all that’s important, really.
You might want to check the FAQs on sig length, though. Yours is pushing it, from what I remember the last guideline being.
Eonwe, I agree. Is it wrong? - yes. Was it a horrible accident? - yes. Should he (and by extension, his parents) be held financially responsible? - yes. Is it a felony that should be tying up the courts with the potential to put the kid behind bars? - no. At least not in a sane world. In addition to the costs incurred by the parents (and whatever costs they extract from the child in punishment, hopefully non-corporal), the child should be punished by the school with whatever punishment is normal for disruptive behavior.
P.S. - Spitballs, in my experience, generally don’t hurt (other than maybe a momentary sting). Yes, I was hit with them, and I hit others. I always thought a short-range rubberband was worse, YMMV. Once you move to stabbing, it hurts. There is no doubt about it. It’s designed to hurt. The stabber’s intent, regardless of the weapon, is to cause significant pain. Spitballs are a juvenile nuisance. I can’t speak for every child, but none I knew blew spitballs with an intent to injure. I don’t think that anyone stabbing another can argue that is was not their intent to injure.
Billy B, No-Doz will get you the firing squad. However, Coke and Pepsi are freely competing and will do whatever they can to ensure you get your caffeine fix early and often. I won’t tell about the Liquid Paper though. Me, I liked putting together models. Didn’t sniff the glue purposely, but it was always present.
Reading further posts while trying to get this to post, I see yet another issue polarizing. I am firmly behind responsible parenting, teaching right from wrong and setting the proper example. But it is complete and utter bullshit to infer that because a child blows spitballs, there was a breakdown in parenting. J.F.C., did all you posters walk on water and then part it so everyone else could pass when you were a teenager?
As for anger management classes - I know I’d need them if I faced this boneheaded decision because I would be extraordinarily angry at the jury.
Here you go, Kayeby. We used straws to shoot them in my “degenerate” days as a youth:
My best friend once busted my head open with a rock. I required a trip to the emergency room and a bunch of stitches to close it up.
I once broke a friend’s nose with a tetherball.
I once was playing “knockout” with my friend, which involved me making him pass out. He fell to the ground, and busted his head open, and required a trip to the emergency room and a bunch of stitches to close it up.
Would those be examples of felony assault?
To many people here are saying “I used to do stuff like that. That could’ve been me!” Not enough people are saying “that could’ve been my son who had his eyesight damaged by (what appears to be) a family of trashy, worthless bullies”.
I personally think the whole worthless family got off light, given the damage they did. Furthermore, the victim’s family needs to sue the living shit out of the criminal’s family.
Oh eeeeeeew! Someone’s spit? <shudder>
I read absolutely nothing in the article on Yahoo! news or the above indicating this was a family of “trashy, worthless bullies”. You must be far better than I am at reading between the lines.
Good points davidw.
Another thing that crossed my mind is, perhaps the parents of the kid who shot the spitball were not willing to accept any responsibility (financial or otherwise) for what happened. If this were the case, then perhaps going to the courts is the only way for the victims’ parents to feel like they are being compensated.
Imagine this:
Parent A: Your kid caused my kid to need surgery. Can you pay for/help pay for the hospital expenses?
Parent B: You can’t prove anything! Your kid’s a crybaby anyway. He didn’t need surgery, it was just a spitball. Lighten up asshole!
See, here I can see Parent A bringing people to court for this. If Parent B doesn’t accept responsibility on his/her own.
I’m surprised no one has commented on the second part of the quote below. From the article linked to in the OP:
And, from another link:
So I think it can be reasonably inferred that the spitball fiasco was not an isolated incident. Were the parent of the boy who was hit in the eye, I would react one way if this were a case of friendly horseplay gone awry, and I would react another way if this were a case of a couple unrestrained neighborhood hooligans deciding to be vicious. We don’t know all the facts, of course, but the latter scenario looks at least as plausible as the former.
No one has pointed out that it wasn’t exactly a spitball-- usually a chewed-up, soggy wad of paper. This was a little ball made out of the thin foil from a gum wrapper, with a point on it–which is how the kid’s lens got torn, requiring eye surgery.
It was a dumb thing to do, and though I don’t think real damage was intended, it was done. The parents should have made him apologize profusely and paid for the surgery etc.,–but I agree that there seems to be a possible history of bullying here, and maybe that’s why the parents of the injusred kid reacted as they did. Or maybe they’re reacting as so many Americans do these days–with a lawyer.
It’s too bad, but I’m confused by the massive downplay of a foil pointy “spitwad” and the portrayal of its thrower as a victim, instead of the kid who had to have eye surgery.
Hey, y’all can get angry with the court and the jury if you want, but who you should really be angry with is the other kid’s parents. They’re the ones who had to decide to press charges or not, they’re the ones who could have kept it out of the courts and between the families. Instead, they chose to press charges and take it to the courts.
I should hope it goes without saying that the only information we have is what’s in the linked article, so it’s easy for us to armchair quarterback it. The jury, on the other hand, had to hear the D.A. and the defense and all of the witnesses, and apparently felt that the D.A. proved his case.
According to the California Penal Code, an assault is defined thus:
“240. An assault is an unlawful attempt, coupled with a present
ability, to commit a violent injury on the person of another.”
That’s it, in a nutshell. That’s all the D.A. would have to prove, and apparently, he did. What’s more, the code also states that:
So those are the sentencing guidelines that the judge, once it’s decided the D.A. proved his case, has to work with. Six days in juvie when the possible sentence is one year of confinement and a $2,000 fine? Gosh, sounds to me like the judge might have said, “Yeah, he’s guilty, but he’s not exactly JD material. I’ll go light.” Imagine that.
The news this morning showed exactly what that “spitball” was: it was an arrow, a dart, formed out of foil. The thing was very pointed and the victim (who, as has been noted above, been victimized by these little tyrants before) describes his vision in the injured eye as “looking through wax paper.”
another point to be made, decision to prosecute:
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A victim may attempt to insist on prosecution, the prosecutor doesn’t have to (if they feel there’s insufficient evidence etc.).
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A victim may demand that no charges are filed, and again, the prosecutor can elect to bring them anyhow. There’s a case in my home town right now where the prosecutor is filing charges of harboring a dangerous animal against the dog owner where the dog harmed the owner’s neice. The parents of the little girl that was harmed are screaming ‘we don’t want her prosecuted’, the prosecutor is still prosecuting.
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in the best of all worlds, the prosecutor and victim both want to go forward, but it ain’t necessary.
Laws may differ in jurisidictions, but IIRC, especially after domestic assault cases got such publicity, many took away the ‘must have victim’s permission to prosecute’.
Thank you, zut. I had read a different article which didn’t touch on these subjects. Based on new information, I’ll soften my stance as regards these individuals. But I hope it doesn’t set a precedent that makes child horseplay illegal.
I would imagine that if the parents of the injured boy are going to seek civil damages, the criminal conviction will help quite a bit in that regard.
A felony conviction seems a bit harsh; however, the impression that I got from the article(s) is that the convicted boy and his brother make this sort of bullying a pattern. Perhaps the judge felt this was a last resort.
It should be noted too that once a jury becomes involved a lot of what happens on a playground could legally be construed as illegal, including much innocuous horseplay.
If that precedent were going to be set so broadly, D_Odds, I think it would have been set a long time ago.
It is obvious that these are my opinions, based on the description provided to me. The kid nearly put another boy’s eye out with a dart, the other boy faces charges related to harrassing this same boy, and the parents must take parenting and anger management classes. This, in my book, makes them all worthless gargage. IMNSHO.
I just have a keen eye for the blatantly obvious.
I remember being rushed on the playground in 7th grade: the entire class of boys would come running at me-veering off at just the last minute. I couldn’t get away from it.
My desk was trashed, my personal possesions messed with. I was spit on, people threw things at me, called me names, until almost the end of school.
I was a walking ball of misery. If someone had asked me if I wanted to press harassment charges, you bet I would have said yes.
The point is-this wasn’t a spitball-it was a gum wrapper of foil-which, btw, is METAL. It pierced the kid’s eye. These little brats had a history of harassing others.
I say he got off lucky.