The counselor was trying to break up a fight between students when she threw a cup of water at the student. Just like you would if you wanted to break up a fight between dogs or cats. I bet the 74 year old woman is a pet owner. The woman has probably used the same method to break up fights with grandchildren if she has any. I believe this charge is wrong. What say you? https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-camp-counselor-74-arrested-allegedly-throwing-water-student The Florida woman is being charged with misdemeanor battery - touch or strike A 74-year-old camp counselor in Florida was arrested after allegedly throwing a cup of water at a student who was playing aggressively. Susan O'Hara, 74 was working at a Surfside Elementary summer camp in Satellite Beach, Florida, when the incident happened on Monday, according to FOX 35. Witnesses told police that O'Hara was attempting to intervene when a student was aggressively playing with others and asked for help from another counselor. Police said that O'Hara tried to keep the student still by holding their shoulders, and the other counselor took the student out of the classroom. O'Hara, after continuously hearing the banging noise, left and came back with a cup filled with water and swung it aggressively at the student, police said. O'Hara then attempted to grab the student several times, but was able to get away and was seen swatting at the 74-year-old. The counselor was arrested and placed in the Brevard County Jail, where she has been bonded out. Jail records show that O'Hara is being charged with battery - touch or strike, which is a misdemeanor.
Here actions seem to meet the technical definition of the charges, but I’d be surprised if the charges don’t end up being dropped. This doesn’t really feel like spirit of the law is being followed. Maybe the Judge will dismiss on absurd results principle.
An unwanted touch is pretty much battery by definition. It appears the student is also guilty of battery. Perhaps both were arrested, in an attempt to make the incident go away by holding charges over both parties' heads.
And if a husband had thrown water into his wife's face during a domestic dispute? This isn't anything novel. I know someone who got charged and convicted of it for spraying someone with a water hose during an argument.
We are made mostly of water. The rest is carbon and trace elements. Getting wet is not dangerous or unhealthy. We have become a nation of *******.
Water can indeed be harmful in certain contexts. Unwanted touching is probably the best definition of battery. That said, charges were probably filed against the kid too. It's pretty evident the cops just want both sides to drop charges.
Then the right approach would have been to lecture the two of them and move on with their day. Arresting someone for throwing water on someone is beyond ridiculous. Water was not harmful in this context so that comment has no place in your post.
That is being overly diplomatic. The snip was written by someone who does not deserve to have passed high school English writing class. It is just horribly written, in how unclear it is, what idea the author's even trying to express. For example: Police said that O'Hara tried to keep the student still by holding their shoulders, and the other counselor took the student out of the classroom. O'Hara, after continuously hearing the banging noise, left and came back with a cup filled with water and swung it aggressively at the student, police said. 1) If the student was taken out of the classroom, how could the 74 yo counselor, O'Hara, "come back" to the classroom (from which the disruptive student, we were just told, had been removed), to "swing" a cup of water at that student (who was no longer there)? Or does this writer think they are being creative, by depicting the action in non linear fashion? Had that been a case of time-shifting, in which the taking of the kid out of the classroom, had been the later action, subsequent to the next paragraph's incident, with the water? 2) WTF "banging noise" is the writer talking about? Is that from earlier in the article (or will that be part of a later "scene?")? One more, horrendous sentence: O'Hara then attempted to grab the student several times, but was able to get away and was seen swatting at the 74-year-old. What kind of fly by night outfit, lets such a sentence stand? Do they not have editors? The sentence, as written, says that O'Hara (the subject) was able to get away, after attempting to grab the student though, clearly, from the part about "swatting at the 74-year-old," it is meant to say that it was the student who'd gotten away. But the direct object of the first verb (the student), does not automatically become the subject, for the next verb. Apparently, the people at this source, are unfamiliar with parallelism-- oh, it's FOX News. That seems to make sense. You can't even trust their correctly following writing rules, far less that whatever story they're so poorly telling, has any truth to it. P.S.-- Thanks for letting me vent about poor writing. Here is my addition to the thread, that you might consider worthwhile: I am getting a sense that the student may have been "special needs."
Causing maximum hassle would also be worthwhile possible. It might also be a response to a demand that one party or the other be arrested for what is technically a violation of the law. A way to demonstrate that neither side was in the right It was you that claimed it was harmless at all times. I wasn't there when this happened. Neither were you. I can't really say what the case was in this incident. Since the article came from FOX, I'll have to reserve judgement as to its veracity.
I didn't use the term "at all times" like you did. One can drown in water. What makes people nit pick like this.
The article is pretty clear it was not self defense. The counselor was trying to stop a student from banging on a door. You don't grab someone while at the same time try to get away from them. I agree it is poor grammar but in the context of what was taking place it becomes obvious the student got away.
I'm guessing the counselor was charged because it does not seem to be self defense. She wanted the child to stop banging on a door.
