A 14-year-old girl who chucked a 1.75" baby carrot at a teacher has been suspended from school and told that she faces charges of battery, according to reports from Henrico County, Va.
Local newsman Jon Burkett writes that Aliya Kay says she meant it as a joke and didn't expect it to actually make contact.
"I don't even know how to combat the stupidity," her mother, Karrie May, told Burkett. "I can see a couple of days in school detention or even a couple days out-of-school suspension. But this goes way beyond that. We have to go to court, and her charges aren't small: assault and battery with a weapon."
Here's a CBS legal expert on critical issues such as the softness of baby carrots.
If it's a soft carrot, it may not be as offensive," said CBS 6 legal expert Todd Stone. "But if it's a raw carrot, you don't have to have an injury or show you were hurt to prove a battery. It just has to be an offensive, vindictive touch. That's what the law says."
Henrico Schools declined to comment on the carrot case.
The National Root Vegetable Association, however, has released a statement saying that while it does not think this is the time for a political debate, the question would not present itself if teachers were themselves armed and trained in the use of small taproots and rhizomes.
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