‘Stand your ground’ law used as child abuse defense

Tennis instructor who hit boy with racket says he was protecting others

MIAMI — A Miami man accused of child abuse is using Florida’s “stand your ground” self-defense law against charges that he hit a 5-year-old boy he says was “armed” with a tennis racket.

The accused is tennis instructor Osmailer Torres, arrested in July 2016 after, Miami police said, he took away the boy’s pint-size racket and hit him with it — bruising the child’s right arm and giving him a lump on his eyebrow. Surveillance video captured the incident on the playground at Miami’s First Presbyterian Church.

Torres, 30, says the blow was inadvertent as he tried to rescue other students in harm’s way.

In a motion asking a judge for “immunity,” his defense lawyer said the boy was the “initial aggressor” and had been involved in “various violent altercations” against fellow students. That day, after being separated from other kids, the boy lifted a racket “in the air and was poised to strike again against the other students and Mr. Torres.”

It’s the latest case of a defendant asking a judge to throw out a criminal case under Florida’s controversial law, which makes it easier for courts to clear people who swear they had no choice but to use violence.

Defense lawyer Eduardo Pereira told the Miami Herald that Torres acted “reasonably in trying to prevent harm” to others — and had no idea his racket hit the boy.

“This was always viewed as an accident by the child and the school staff, but is being treated as something more for reasons unknown,” said Pereira, who described his client as a “softspoken and professional” Sunday school teacher who has never been in trouble with the law.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Oscar Rodriguez-Fonts will consider the claim at an “immunity” hearing early next year.