Absolutely ridiculous. The woman is sick of some punks trashing a memorial which she has an emotional attachment to and the police won't help, so after two years she loses her temper and punches one. I find that completely understandable, and probably justifiable. Now, it says that she wasn't sure that that boy was one of the ones responsible, so I believe she could have been out of line there, but still. Come the **** on.

@Levi:
About the demonization of teens in Britain. Now, I don't follow British news much so I can't comment on if that's true or not, but passing off all the dumb **** that some fifteen year olds do simply by saying "media demonization" is rather idiotic, to put it bluntly. Teenagers are almost inherently stupid. This includes everyone, even you and me! We're not as bad as most, but don't try to tell me you've never done anything stupid.

Some teens let their stupidity run rampant, and ride dirt bikes through war memorials. The Huey Helicopter memorial for those who died in Vietnam, up near where I used to live, got spray painted several times. Once it was painted all over with penises. Don't try and tell me that was done by a forty year old or a girl! The police never did anything about it. If I'd caught one of the punks in the act and I thought that I was big enough to take 'em, I'd do the exact same thing that woman did.

You Brits are getting soft, Levi. Sometimes the right thing to do isn't to ignore **** like this, but just go out and grab the idiots, punch them in the gut, and take them to the police. At least let them know that **** like vandalism won't be tolerated, because if you don't let them know that, they'll do it everywhere they can get away with it.

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"When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...."
- The Declaration of Independence