KissaBoo

Throw like a girl; Be Tried like a Felon

In what maybe one of the most legally frightening moves I have heard of in a while, an 11-year-old Fresno girl is being tried on a felonious deadly-weapon charge for hitting a boy with a rock (luckily, it has been reported the trial has been dropped). Clearly, she made a poor (some would say childish) choice when she decided to defend her and her brother from some boys hurling water balloons with a rock, but the parents of the boys involved should be embarrassed to have gotten the police involved and/or failing to dissuade them from prosecuting her. A website, Free Maribel Cuevas, has been setup to follow her (perhaps already over) plight.

This story hits particularly hard for me because when I was about her age (actually, I have only a vague idea of how old I was, but young enough to be on a playground), I stoned someone in a moment of weakness. Similar to this girl, I was defending myself (or at least making a point) when I hit a boy in the head with a 1 1/2 inch piece of rock gravel at a distance of perhaps 40 yards - unfortunately, one of the great throws of my life. The boy, who admittedly was already running away at the time, went to his mother. When she came out, towing him along with a sack of ice on his bruise, I stood my ground. I explained to her that they started the rock throwing (which she, of course, did not know since they had somehow managed to leave that out of their account) and apologized for throwing the rock. She gave me a stern warning (though even without the warning I never had plans before or after that moment to stone someone) and the police were fortunately never involved -- with hopefully neither side ever imagining they would be. It is a sad day when the community cannot educate their children in such matters of right and wrong to instead teach them to call the police when innocent disagreements occur.