Hold That Veggie

Zero tolerance

A 14-year-old girl was suspended from Moody Middle School in Henrico County, Virginia, for a month and faces possible assault and battery charges. Her crime: playfully throwing a baby carrot at one of her former teachers. The speeding salad staple hit the teacher's forehead—but that wasn't her intention, the student said. Rather, she was just trying to get the passerby's attention.

"I don't even know how to combat the stupidity," Karrie May, the girl's mother, told WTVR. "Yes, it happened, and 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." (Administrators are refusing to comment on the case.)

"If it's a soft carrot, it may not be as offensive," legal expert Todd Stone said in the WTVR story. "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."

Alas, it was not a soft carrot. And so, in the school's view, the vegetable is a weapon.