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Teen Boy Kissed Girl on a Dare. Now He Faces Assault Charges.

Pikesville Middle School 13-year-old charge with second-degree assault.

Robby Soave|
KissDreamstimeA Pikesville, Maryland, 13-year-old will be charged with second-degree assault for kissing a 14-year-old girl on a dare. The "assault" happened at Pikesville Middle School on Friday. Police were called to the scene.
According to WBFF:
School officials took a report regarding a 13-year-old boy who kissed a 14-year-old girl during school hours. The unwanted kiss was allegedly the result of a dare made by students.
Police confirm that the boy is now facing a second-degree assault charge as a juvenile. No one was injured during the incident, police say, and disciplinary actions related to suspension or expulsion will be handled by the school system.
No one was injured. Is that really surprising?
It's of course true that every 14-year-old has the right not to be kissed. I'm not saying the boy's transgression should go unpunished. What I'm saying is this: he should not be charged with assault. He's 13. Thirteen-year-olds do stupid stuff. They screw up. And when the consequences of their actions are as minor as this, it's better to reprimand them in a manner that does not involve the criminal justice system.
By all means, give this kid detention. Make him apologize to the girl. Tell his parents to teach him better manners.
But don't charge him with assault. That would be a far greater crime than a stolen kiss.
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  • Lee G||#
    By all means, give this kid detention. Make him apologize to the girl. Tell his parents to teach him better manners.
    Actually, they should punch the complainant in the face.
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  • Zeb||#
    Nah, some juvenile mockery should do the job.
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  • Lee G||#
    I don't think the 14 year old is the complainant
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  • fish||#
    America: Build a fence around it so the stupid doesn't leak out!
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  • Paul.||#
    That may be how YOU see it, I see it as we get to keep it all to ourselves!
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  • Eman||#
    like!
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  • Sigmund||#
    Funny
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  • Heroic Mulatto||#
    That'll teach those kids for being kids!
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  • Libertymike||#
    OT-
    Just read your post from the Tony thread. I was not aware that he was that kind of nasty to you. So, yes, you have good reason to shut the courthouse doors to him.
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  • Akira||#
    But this barbaric male didn't get affirmative consent before he committed that heinous sexual aggression! There's no doubt that he'll grow up and join one of the campus rape gangs!
    /SJW
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  • Karl Hungus||#
    I'm sure the scholarship offers are already pouring in from UVA and Duke.
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  • Joe Langley||#
    heinous sexual aggression ???
    Most stupid comment, take your meds.
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  • Kally||#
    Pretty sure they were being sarcastic. XD
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  • Vampire||#
    Take your anti depressants dickhead. Akira was being sarcastic.
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  • Paul.||#
    This just in, Millennial Women complain they can't find viable men to date!
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  • Pan Zagloba||#
    They are surrounded by rapists, and you make light of their plight! Report to re-education camp by 10:00 tomorrow!
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  • Episiarch||#
    Yet your mom can't not find men to date. Though, I suppose that's more financial than anything else...
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  • Irish ♥s ESB||#
    I think it's hilarious that when it comes to sexual assaults, we're telling schools to deal with the rapes and cops to deal with the unwanted kisses.
    Call me crazy, but I was under the impression that jail should be the punishment for rape and in school suspensions should be the punishment for kissing a girl inappropriately.
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  • Notorious UGCC||#
    Stop making sense.
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  • JWatts||#
    Didn't we determine yesterday that if there's at least a 20% chance he actually kissed her, then he should be expelled?
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  • Episiarch||#
    Ever note that these strange cultural pushes (rape "epidemic", drug panics, bullying, etc) always have completely inverse results from anything that makes sense?
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  • Almanian - Micro Trumper||#
    This is how rape culture is perpetuated. Get that fucking kid before he rapes again. For the children.
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  • Morpheus was right||#
    Rape culture shmape culture. But for srsly, this dude is like a serial rapist CAUGHT ON CAMERA!!!!11!
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  • PapayaSF||#
    +1
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  • Joe Langley||#
    You really show with your comment how stupid you are.
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  • This Machine||#
    You're new around here, right? Almanian! was being sarcastic. Most of the commenters are. Rookie mistake, buddah.
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  • PapayaSF||#
    *WHOOSH*
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  • Dey Turk Er Jurbs||#
    Damn, that's two blatantly obvious sarcastic comments (so far) you clearly misunderstood. Then you call THEM stupid, when it's clearly YOU who can't keep up with the rest of the class.
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  • Vampire||#
    Omg! You are really showing how much more of a dickhead you are, when sarcasm was "splained" to you earlier.
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  • Cliché Bandit||#
    Elliot kissed that girl in E.T. and that was one of the best scenes in that film. I still laugh thinking about it.
    WTF is wrong with everyone in this story?
    Seriously? Who called the police? What cop/DA decided this was a good idea to charge a kid? What parent presses these charges? What 14 yo girl is so upset by this that she has the police contacted in the first place?
    i repeat...WTF?
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  • JWatts||#
    "Elliot kissed that girl in E.T. and that was one of the best scenes in that film. "
    And if we had just arrested him at that point, ET would have never gotten away. /FBI Agent
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  • Episiarch||#
    "E.T. rape home."
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  • Loki||#
    Who called the police?
    Some "zero-tolerance" school bureacrat or teacher. E.g., an asshole with no common sense.
    What cop/DA decided this was a good idea to charge a kid?
    Same as above: an asshole with no common sense. Or a sociopath, neither would be surprising.
    What parent presses these charges?
    A pussy who expects the state to solve all their problems for them. In the old days the girl's father would just go have a man to man talk with the boy's father and let it be known that the boy is not to mess with the girl, or else...
    What 14 yo girl is so upset by this that she has the police contacted in the first place?
    Given the kind of parents involved (see above) probably a complete mental midget who's been raised to appeal to authority to solve all her problems for her. IOW, a pussy.
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  • Warren||#
    I'm not saying the boy's transgression should go unpunished. What I'm saying is this: he should not be charged with assault. He's 13. Thirteen-year-olds do stupid stuff. They screw up.
    Um okay. But what if a 30 year old man kisses a 22 year old woman without permission? Is that assault? I remember a time when you could get your face slapped and that would be the end of it. I don't understand why that isn't the appropriate response anymore.
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  • Citizen X||#
    You've been slapped a bunch of times, haven't you.
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  • Trouser-Pod (The blowhard)||#
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  • Almanian - Micro Trumper||#
    "DARKNESS!!!" - Rick James to Charlie Murphy
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  • Crusty Juggler||#
    "Fuck yo couch"
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  • Zeb||#
    From what I understand, any deliberate contact without permission can technically be assault and/or battery under most states' laws.
    That doesn't mean you aren't a terrible person if you press charges for stupid crap like this.
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  • Careless||#
    Of course, a face slap is assault, too
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  • 2tiredofit||#
    It's actually two assaults; one for the kiss and one for the slap. It would make any cops day.
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  • Ron||#
    I think under the public accommodation laws the boy is in the right to get a free kiss whenever he wants it.
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  • Millard Fillmore||#
    Only if she willingly kisses other boys. By doing that she has established that she is willing to provide for the public, so if she doesn't want to kiss other boys that's discrimination.
    And if the percentage of gay boys she kisses does not match the percentage of gay kids in the total population, throw her in a cage.
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  • Brian Lastname||#
    Disagree. This is assault, although obviously in most cases it won't be reported if it was actually innocent kids fooling around. But just because there are no physical injuries doesn't mean there are no victims.
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  • *GILMORE*||#
    "in most cases it won't be reported if it was actually innocent kids fooling around"
    So you're pretending that it *wasn't* innocent kids fooling around simply because it was reported?
    I guess parents who let their kids play outside are also similarly guilty of neglect *if someone calls CPS on them*?
    why... the very fact of *being charged* means it MUST be serious....therefore the charge must be justified!!
    What's that called again? Flogging the inquiry? panhandling the interrogative?
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  • Almanian - Micro Trumper||#
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  • Rasilio||#
    And your point?
    See that there is what they call a strawman because no one is arguing that what the kid did was is ok.
    Further, you might want to brush up on your legal definitions...
    Generally, the essential elements of assault consist of an act intended to cause an apprehension of harmful or offensive contact that causes apprehension of such contact in the victim.
    The act required for an assault must be overt. Although words alone are insufficient, they might create an assault when coupled with some action that indicates the ability to carry out the threat. A mere threat to harm is not an assault; however, a threat combined with a raised fist might be sufficient if it causes a reasonable apprehension of harm in the victim.Intent is an essential element of assault. In tort law, it can be specific intent—if the assailant intends to cause the apprehension of harmful or offensive contact in the victim—or general intent—if he or she intends to do the act that causes such apprehension.
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  • Rasilio||#
    So the act was overt however there was no reasonable expectation or intent to cause harm (a kiss while potentially unpleasant is not harmful). While there might be some specific alteration from the general common law definition of assault in that jurisdiction that technically makes the act qualify as assault the act does not meet the general definition.
    More importantly however the actual point of the article went completely over your head. Soave was not arguing whether the act meets the technical definition of assault he is arguing that whether or not it does using law enforcement to resolve the issue is inappropriate
    The idea that every infraction no matter how minor must be resolved in a court of law with criminal charges is a problem. The criminal justice system can't even handle actual rape cases effectively and you want to bring them in on a stupid kids prank?
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  • PapayaSF||#
    +1
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  • Loki||#
    And yours is the comment of a complete dipshit.
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  • Notorious UGCC||#
    In other news, Georgie Porgie has been indicted on 50 counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault.
    He is still at large. If approached by group of males, he will flee the scene.
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  • Tundra, well-chilled.||#
    Nice.
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  • Red Rocks Rockin||#
    I'm so glad my childhood was three decades ago and not today--I'd be put on the sexual predators list for luring the kindergarten class hottie into the playground tractor tires to smooch.
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  • Eman||#
    yeah i remember playing "doctor" with girls in elementary school. that was only two decades ago, but im pretty sure that would get me in trouble today
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  • JWatts||#
    "Everything is illegal,..."
    No,that's not quite right. "Everything not mandatory is illegal."
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  • Loki||#
    Only 2nd degree assault and not Sexual Assault and a lifetime on the Sex Offenders Registry? Sounds like he got off light. /sarc
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  • creech||#
    Maybe it was a double dog dare? No red-blooded American boy could ever walk away from that and ever show his face in the hallway again.
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  • OneOut||#
    This.
    Double Dog Dares are unrefuseable.
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  • Fist of Etiquette||#
    Thirteen-year-olds do stupid stuff. They screw up.
    And now he's in the system so the the next time he screws up he'll know the drill and the data entry clerk down at police headquarters can skip a few steps.
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  • Karl Hungus||#
    It's good to get violent offenders in the system, even before they commit their first violent act.
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  • Rasilio||#
    Hey, hows he going to learn to become a violent offender without first serving a stint in Juvie?
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  • Karl Hungus||#
    I don't think we need to be that draconian, at least not yet. Just get him fitted for an ankle monitor and get his name on the sex offender registry for life, and there might still be time to save this one..
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  • Careless||#
    I mean, was there tongue?
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  • Voros McCracken||#
    We're all just potential points on a DA's scoreboard. Kid might as well learn that now.
    "What I'm saying is this: he should not be charged with assault."
    I'm finding that the word "should" has lost most of its real world meaning. What people should do is an increasingly irrelevant concept compared to what they're actually going to do.
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  • HazelMeade||#
    What the fuck is wrong with people?
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  • Joe Langley||#
    What in the hell is going on in this country? Assault when trying to kiss a girl?
    People are going totally insane, lock them up in asylums.
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  • Frank Truth||#
    We have a horrific rape culture in the United States where one in every two females is a a victim of rape some time in her life and males think women are nothing more than sex objects with whom they can do any thing they please any time they please. We must end white male privilege.
    It is clear for anyone to see, this punk is a sexual predator. Sex offenders must be nipped in the bud. Soon this teenager will be raping his sister and taking advantage of and abusing women whenever he can. You can expect him to molest his children. We should have zero tolerance for sexual assault. How would you like it if you were the victim of a sexual assault. He should be sent to special school equipped to handle sexual deviants.
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  • Notorious UGCC||#
    "special school equipped to handle sexual deviants"
    Congress?
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  • PapayaSF||#
    Troll level: 10.
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  • This Machine||#
    If it's sarcasm, he'll fit right in here!
    I really hope it's sarcasm.
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  • johncbsr1||#
    OMG! This is just terrible. Someone is a complete asshole. Assault? I'd like to assault whoever stirred this nonsense up.
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  • WinOneForTheChipper||#
    It's Baltimore...so what do you expect
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  • polarvortex||#
    As a life-long Democrat and Socialist, I insist that we show no mercy for this outrage. I believe - and I'm sure that most of you will agree with me on this - the death penalty is the only appropriate penalty for such a heinous crime. Sharpen up a good sword and chop off his head in the public square.
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  • Tony||#
    Fucking Al Gore.
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  • Stilgar||#
    It's of course true that every 14-year-old has the right not to be kissed
    No, thats not the fuck true. Stop condoning this bullshit. Every 14 year old should just get the fuck over themself along with the "adults" too. What is next, plastic bubles? Cones of Silence?
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  • Prelusive007||#
    Just like leftwingnuts to harass a boy for kissing a girl. Now if the boy had kissed another boy, they would have pinned a blue star and him and sent him home with a commendation letter and a bouquet of pink daffodils.
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  • GoMerica||#
    If he kissed a boy he's have been given a rainbow sticker on his forehead and a jar of vaseline!
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