Recently, there was a news story about a woman who faced a felony charge of squirting breast milk into the face of a deputy law enforcement officer.The woman, from Kentucky, was arrested for public intoxication. As she was changing into an inmate uniform after her arrest, she squirted a stream of breast milk into the face of the female deputy watching over her.In the press release from the Kentucky Detention Center, the deputy de-contaminated herself from the "bio-hazard" and the woman was charged with third-degree assault.The original charge, public drunkenness, was merely a misdemeanor offense; the assault is a felony charge and a $10,000 bond was set.Of course, the media picked this up, and everyone chuckled at the story. People are debating about whether using breast milk as a weapon should constitute a felony assault case, and there are plenty of laughs going around.The deputy, however, is not laughing.She has to go through months of testing and waiting to see if she has contracted the HIV virus.Sadly (and stupidly, I think), we can't legally test the inmate immediately for HIV - some nonsense about privacy. We have to let the deputy wait, wonder, and worry. That's simply not compassionate and certainly not fair.That this inmate is drunk as a mother seems bad enough, but to intentionally squirt her bodily fluid into someone else's face has the intent to humiliate or harm.A felony charge is appropriate.And that baby needs a better mother.
