DEL.ICIO.USWoman struck in cheerleading fracas will not be charged
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
A Forsyth County mom failed Tuesday to convince a judge that the woman she hit should also face charges.
Michelle Rains, 39, asked Chief Magistrate Barbara Cole to issue a warrant against Nancy Cunningham, president of the Sharon Springs Cheerleading Association, for simple battery.
PHIL SKINNER / pskinner@ajc.com
Attorney John Valente (left) confers with Greg and Michelle Rains before she took the witness stand in Forsyth County Magistrate Court Tuesday.
Rains has already been charged with simple battery for allegedly hitting Cunningham in the face after Cunningham refused to reassign Rains’ daughter to a different cheerleading squad.
Rains has acknowledged hitting Cunningham, but contends that Cunningham grabbed her first and also should have been arrested.
But at the end of a hearing, with a couple dozen parents in attendance, Cole ruled that there was not grounds to arrest Cunningham.
Cunningham’s attorney, Marc Cunat, accused Rains of “grandstanding” and “victimizing a victim” by dragging Cunningham into court.
Witnesses testified that about 240 young girls, ages 5 to 12, were attending a cheerleading clinic when Rains came in upset that her 9-year-old was not assigned to the squad that would be cheering for her 11-year-old brother’s football team.
They testified that, in a heated exchange, Rains hit Cunningham on the chin and then taunted her.
Rains denied taunting Cunningham and told the judge that Cunningham had grabbed her arm in an aggressive manner. But another witness said Cunningham touched Rains’ hand at one point, in what appeared to be an attempt to diffuse the situation.
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