Dad Accused Of Punching 14-Year-Old Soccer Player In The Face After Boy Scuffled With His Son During Game

It’s common enough for parents to get bent out of shape with other parents at their kids’ sporting events. Fights break out between parents fairly often. For that matter, sometimes parents even engage in fisticuffs with coaches and referees. But assaulting one of the child players is definitely a rare enough occurrence to warrant a couple of headlines.

Virginia Beach is where the North American Sand Soccer Tournament took place, which erupted into violence. According to Daily Mail, Jordan Grinnell was arrested on a misdemeanor charge for assault. Witnesses say Grinnell charged 14-year-old Timothy Vickerie, punching him in the head numerous times. Vickerie was treated at the hospital for a mild concussion and given stitches for a gash over his right eye.

The attack reportedly followed victim Timothy Vickerie getting into a separate altercation with a fellow soccer player. According to eyewitnesses, both players were grabbing at one another. One spectator, identified as Jennifer Moss, described the event leading up to the violent attack.

“They were grabbing each other and it was certainly getting grabby.”

But after a few moments of that, apparently, Grinnell ran up to the boys, threw 14-year-old Vickerie to the ground and began pummeling the boy’s face. According to Moss, it took 10 other dads to wrestle Grinnell to the ground. Moss then called 911.

While Grinnell is expected to be arraigned in court on June 20, he is currently out of jail on bond. According to Vickerie’s parents, Grinnell has tried to apologize since violently beating their son in the middle of a soccer game. As most people would probably have guessed, they aren’t interested in hearing Grinnel’s apologies.

“[Grinnell] tried to apologize, but we weren’t interested in that,” Vickerie’s father stated.

Quite contrarily to Grinnell’s belated attempts at civil discourse, the Vickerie family is considering their court options. Clearly unsatisfied with a simple misdemeanor charge, the Vickeries have civil court on their minds. Certainly on their list of expenses would be the emergency room bill for Timothy Vickerie’s care. In 2018, emergency room visits are rare to cost less than $500 and that’s not including the cost of an ambulance which costs just as much, at the minimum. When stitches and other tests are performed, the costs only go higher and higher.

To ease the worries of other concerned parents the NASSC released a statement about the incident, promising tightened security in 2019.

“For 25 years, the North American Sand Soccer Championships has promoted a safe, fun and family friendly weekend of competition, attracting more than 200,000 participants over that time. We take very seriously any acts of violence and condemn any bystander from entering the field of play. Our hearts go out to the victim in this unfortunate incident, and we want to assure everyone that we will redouble our efforts to make the 2019 tournament and all future ones even more safe and secure for our athletes, coaches, officials, parents and other visitors who attend this world class event.”