When I first heard that an eighth grader at a Baltimore-area middle school had been charged with second-degree assault after he kissed a girl on a dare, I initially thought this was a horrible overreaction. To be sure, kissing a girl you really don’t know would have never been acceptable even in my time, and definitely isn’t acceptable now. Haul the boy into the office and call his parents, for sure. Definitely make him apologize to the girl. But call the police? At first glance, while this can’t be excused as eighth graders being eighth graders, calling the police seemed way too heavy-handed. But based on new details that have come out over the weekend, there would have been something wrong if the police hadn’t stepped in.
According to Baltimore County police reports, the school resource officer at Pikesville Middle School met with the girl and her guardian on Friday morning. The 14-year-old girl, who like the boy is in the eighth grade, said that the boy grabbed her by the shirt near her stomach, pulled her toward him and “open mouth kissed her with his tongue.” Had this happened in my day at Myers Park High School in Charlotte, my alma mater, most of the girls I know would have given any boy who did this an elbow in the ribs.
The officer then called for backup. Under questioning, the boy admitted he’d done it on a dare from some of his friends. It was at that point that the boy was charged with assault and sent home with his mother. He was also disciplined by the school, though there’s no word on the details of that punishment as of yet.
This was way beyond something that could be handled only at the school level. A boy grabbing a girl, pulling him toward her and kissing her would have been enough by itself to demand calling the police. But grabbing her by the stomach? This boy is very lucky that he was allowed to go home. Had this been two adults rather than two eighth grade kids, there’s no question that he would have been headed to jail.
From where I’m sitting, this kid is getting a badly-needed reality check. We have to start nipping rape culture in the bud and drive home the message that behavior like this isn’t just wrong, but potentially criminal. Even with that to consider, I hope that he doesn’t get anything more than probation until he’s 18. That alone should be enough to send the message.
He may not be the only one who needs a reality check, though. I hope the police have not-so-friendly chats with the kids who dared that boy to kiss that girl, as well as the parents of all of the boys involved. If I were the principal at this school, I’d seriously consider calling the entire eighth grade, and maybe the entire school, in for an assembly to stress that this sort of thing is not acceptable, and will be dealt with severely.
There’s a reason that we in Liberal America are concerned about kids being arrested for trivial stuff that is better handled at the school and home level. It’s because it clogs up police and criminal-justice resources that could better be used to deal with really serious matters, like what transpired at this school. In light of what this eighth grader did, calling in the police was the only acceptable response.
