Cops: Teen arrested for assaulting classmate

A 13-year-old Piedmont Lakes Middle School student was arrested Tuesday after police said he choked and slammed to the ground another, much slighter boy, police said.

The injured student — who’d thrown acorns at the bigger boy — had a fractured skull and a minor brain bleed but was able to speak with a deputy with the Orange County Sheriff ’s Office while at Florida Hospital, according to an arrest affidavit.

The incident began Monday when a group of boys started throwing acorns at each other. The injured student said the boys were horsing around and having fun, apparently during P.E. class, until he hit the larger boy, an eighth grader, in the face and made him mad. Other boys told a deputy that the injured student threw another acorn — even after the other teenager got upset — which also hit the larger boy in the face.

The bigger student, who weighs nearly 200 pounds, tried to chase down the smaller one, who weighs about 80 pounds, but was not able to catch him, the affidavit said. A short time later, however, the smaller student was near the school’s tennis courts when the bigger one surprised him, grabbing him from behind around the neck, squeezing until he blacked out and then slamming him to the ground, the affidavit said.

The injured student said he came to, but felt dizzy, according to the deputy’s account. He told a teacher what happened, then went to the nurse’s office where his parents were called. At that time, the extent of the boy’s injuries were not known, but the school’s eighth-grade dean told the victim’s father that the aggressor would be punished, based on what a coach and students had reported.

The victim’s parents took him to the emergency room later that evening when he felt sleepy and sluggish and began to vomit.

The school resource officer at Piedmont Lakes, located in west Orange near Apopka, learned about the assault Tuesday, after the victim’s father contacted the Sheriff ’s Office.

The aggressor was arrested on a charge of felony battery (great bodily harm) and taken to the county’s juvenile detention center.

The Orlando Sentinel is not naming the boy because of his age.

The injured student’s mother posted about the incident on Facebook but declined, via a Facebook message, to be interviewed.

The Orange County school district declined to comment, citing student privacy concerns.