Story Archive

Criminal Racket

Osmailer Torres, 30, a tennis coach in Miami, Fla., was arrested after hitting one of his students during a lesson on the playground at a First Presbyterian Church, where Torres is also a Sunday School teacher. Torres’s lawyer filed a motion in court asking for “immunity” for his client on the grounds that the state’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law should apply, since the student was “armed” with a tennis racquet, and the student was the “initial aggressor” in the altercation and had been in “various violent altercations” with other students. It was only when the aggressive student lifted his racquet “in the air and was poised to strike again against the other students and Mr. Torres” that Torres allegedly took the student’s racquet away from him and hit him with it. The student ended up with a bruised arm and a “lump” at his eyebrow. But once the case hit the news — and a video of the incident emerged — Torres apologized. “Anyone who knows me can speak to my character and knows I’m a much better person than what that video shows in those few seconds,” he said. The student didn’t comment: his mommy and daddy are keeping him out of the spotlight, since he’s only 5 years old. (RC/Miami Herald, WFOR Miami) ...Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. —Proverbs 23:13 (ESV).