The Marion County Sheriff’s Office received a teletype message from the Department of Children and Families Florida Abuse Hotline on Tuesday night alerting them to an issue of “inappropriate touching” involving an eighth-grader at North Marion Middle School.
The teletype informed the sheriff’s office that a 13-year-old boy had slapped a 12-year-old girl on her rear end while they were riding a school bus together. A sheriff’s deputy then responded to the girl’s house, where he was told the incident happened at about 4:15 p.m. The girl said she confirmed the problem when questioned by the bus driver. And she said the boy had been touching her like that for two to three weeks, a sheriff’s office report states.
The girl said she had made an attempt to report the issue to a dean at the school but it couldn’t be addressed because she couldn’t provide the boy’s last name, the report states.
The deputy then responded to the boy’s house and spoke with his grandmother and grandfather. The grandmother said she had been contacted by the bus driver regarding the issue of “inappropriate touching” but she wasn’t aware of the specific details, the report says.
The boy admitted to the deputy that he slapped the girl “on the back of her leg” but said he wasn’t attempting to hit her rear end. He said he had been slapping her like that for two or three weeks and characterized them as friends. And he said only told him to stop in a “playful” manner, the report says.
The deputy warned the boy that the issue could turn into a criminal matter if he didn’t stop touching the sixth-grader. The deputy also notified DCF and the sheriff’s office’s juvenile division of the conversation he had with the boy. He also requested that it be addressed based on school protocol at the facility, located at 2085 W Hwy. 329 in Citra.