A mother in Charlotte County said her 12-year-old son was punched in the face by a man on Wednesday, knocking out his front teeth and busting his lip.
Now she is upset and confused as to why the man was not arrested, WFTX reports.
"When I realized my teeth were dangling in my mouth it was kind of shocking, I didn't know what was going on," the boy told WFTX.
Charlotte County Sheriff's Office deputies said that Vicent Cerfalo, 27, is the man who hit the boy, WFTX reports. Cerfalo told WFTX that the incident happened when he yelled at the boy and a group of children to get out of the road because they were blocking traffic.
"I told them to back off and if they come on my property, I'm going to defend myself. They said, 'You won't hit us, you won't hit us,' and they started to surround me," Cerfalo told WFTX.
Cell phone video shows the moment the boy got punched in the face, but Cerfalo said he acted out of self defense when the boy touched him.
"It was not my intention to hit anybody that hard, it was not my intention to knock teeth out or do harm, or cause any kind of trouble," Cerfalo told WFTX.
Cerfalo said he plans to press charges against the 12-year-old, but the children said he was never touched during the incident.
The Sheriff's Office said the "best course of action" was to hand the case over to the state attorney's office "due to conflicting witness statements," WFTX reports.
About the Author
