A 13-year-old Maryland boy has been arrested and charged with assault after planting an unwanted kiss on his 14-year-old female classmate. The boy faces second-degree assault charges after kissing the girl on a dare, one that was witnessed by several other students. Now, what was a potentially harmless exchange has become a true legal imbroglio.
The facts of the case are these. Both the 13-year-old boy and the 14-year-old girl are students at Pikesville Middle School in Baltimore County MD. On Friday, and during school hours, the boy was dared by classmates to kiss the girl; he did so. Both the 13- and the 14-year old are eighth grade students. The kiss was unwanted–it isn’t yet clear if the girl was around for the dare itself, or of the boy approached her out of nowhere with his lips ready to meet the demands of the dare–and, after the girl complained, the police got involved.
The boy will face second-degree assault charges, as a juvenile, as a result of the dare-based kiss.
Parents interviewed by FOX Baltimore sounded uncertain about the result of the unwanted kiss on a dare. Said one woman, “I don’t know if an unwanted kiss is a second-degree assault of a person.”
And, according to an area man, the police might not have been needed, given that the circumstances were a 13-year-old boy kissing a 14-year-old girl on a dare. The school should have handled the situation first, said the man; “And then,” he continued, “if the parents want to press charges, then there’s nothing else that can be done.”
(Photo credits: Kisses one, two, three via Flickr)
