Boy Ends Girl’s Pregancy With A Football, Intentionally
Wow. This is what happens when condoms and sex ed are kept out of schools and family planning clinics are picketed and their patrons harassed. Though tragic, these kids are way smarter and way less criminal than the PA woman who used her child as a baseball bat to attack her beau with. (yeah-it messed the baby up). There’s a twisted Charlie Brown and Lucy cartoon in this. This will be an interesting case to follow.
Authorities: Boy threw football at pregnant teen’s belly, causing death of her premature baby
International Herald Tribune | Friday, December 21, 2007
FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida: Authorities in Florida are weighing whether to file charges against 15-year-old boy who they say threw a football against a pregnant teen’s stomach twice, causing the baby’s premature to be born prematurely and die hours later.
The boy threw the football at the mother, also 15, while they were at a Boys & Girls Club playground last month, according to a Broward County sheriff’s report.
While the death has been ruled a homicide, Maria Schneider, assistant state attorney in charge of the Juvenile Division, said no decision has been made yet on what, if any, charges will be filed. The boy is not in custody.
“This is not straight forward. This is not cut and dry,” Schneider said, adding that the boy’s age, intentions and state of mind will be taken into consideration. “This is a sensitive matter. We didn’t want to rush to judgment.”
Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Joshua Perper ruled that the death was a homicide.
“You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to know that if you hit a woman who is pregnant in the belly, that you can cause an abortion,” he told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
Perper declined to comment when reached by the AP.
Under Florida law, anyone who causes an unborn baby’s death as a result of an attack on the baby’s mother commits a homicide, Perper said.
According to a Broward County sheriff’s report, the boy had asked the girl about two weeks earlier why her belly was “sticking out” and she answered that she was pregnant and due to give birth in a few months.
On Nov. 21, the teens were hanging out the club’s basketball court. He threw the football in her direction and she moved away. The boy then ran up to the girl, threw the ball at her stomach, picked up the ball and threw it at her stomach again, the sheriff’s report says.
The girl gave birth the next day and the baby died soon afterward. The report does not say how far along the girl’s pregnancy was.
Frank Till, CEO of the Broward Boys & Girls Clubs, declined comment.