It's that time of year again already. Viral kindergarten graduation brawls are back. So are all the associated complications that sometimes follow, like those annoying arrests and trips to the hospital.
But don't for a second think that participating in one of these insane graduation-ruining events means that you should be charged as if you're the aggressor. That's what Jessica Anderson would like to help everyone understand.
She was charged with felonious assault, reports 13 Action News. She admits that she participated in last week's viral kindergarten graduation melee in Toledo, Ohio, which is said to have started because of a dispute over seating. But she didn't start the fight.
Not only did she not start the fight, she wasn’t the only person throwing punches. Given that, she wants all the video taken of the fighting to come out, and to have her name restored to the participant and not the face of the brawl as the only person charged.
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The local outlet reports that Anderson appears to be seen in the video grabbing a woman by the hair, but she argues that the viral clip doesn’t tell the full story of what took place at Queen of Apostles School. Court records allege the person she grabbed by the hair needed stitches after her head hit a chair.
"I removed her from the pile, and then her arm fell into a chair. Then we were surrounded by people, and she was hitting me. I didn’t know what was happening, so I started swinging back," Anderson told 13 Action News about the incident.
"I wasn’t the aggressor; it wasn’t my face that should have been blasted everywhere. I take accountability that I was involved. A lot of people were involved, but me being the only person charged was not fair. It wasn’t."
Woman involved in viral kindergarten graduation brawl argues she wasn’t the aggressor after being charged. (Getty)
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What's fair or not as far as who was charged and who wasn’t isn’t up for me to decide. The legal process, I assume, will get to the bottom of all that. What I'd like to focus on are the kindergarten graduations themselves.
As someone who has attended three of them, I've heard this question asked before. Is there really a need for kindergarten graduations? There's an argument to be made that it doesn't benefit the children at all and these sorts of "milestone" marking moments are only for the parents (mostly moms).
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A kindergarten graduation in Toledo, Ohio resulted in a viral brawl that sent one to the hospital and one facing charges. (Getty)
While I agree we don’t need to waste an hour or more out of our day to find out who has the best smile or is the most compassionate child. We don’t need a song or a performance of any kind either. That said, I'd argue that these ceremonies do provide a benefit for the kids too.
It's not so much the ceremony itself, but they get to learn about their parents and family and whether they're being raised by lunatics who can make it through a simple graduation without punching other people or not.
That's a valuable lesson to be learned at a young age.
Sean Joseph is a writer for OutKick.
