Photo: Nida Longoria(L), Veronica Zerutche (R) Arrested for Encouraging Young Girls to Fight
Two Florida women have been charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor for organizing a fight between two young girls, a fight which was shot in front of a closed sheriff’s office and put on YouTube.
Veronica Zerutche, 28, can bee heard cheering on her daughter, while Nida Longoria, 26, does the same for her younger sister.
The fighting girls are just 15 and 11, but are being encouraged to fight by their family members as a crowd of at least half a dozen people watch.
The brawl takes place in the parking lot and grassy area in front of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s office.
According to Larry McKinnon, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, there had been ‘bad blood’ between the girls, which likely stemmed from a long-standing feud between the families.
‘[They girls] had been planning on fighting.’ McKinnon told a local Fox News affiliate. ‘Their parents learned that these issues had been occurring so they helped engage this fight. They actually brought them to the scene.’
He added that detectives were able to determine both the girls by way of a school resource officer, as well as the two older woman, Zerutche and Longoria.
Zerutche’s mother, Angelica, says her daughter had just given birth less than two weeks earlier, and she was unable to intervene on her daughter’s behalf.
‘She tried to protect her, but like I said, she just had a baby, she couldn’t get in there. Both girls came over to my daughter and my granddaughter and it wasn’t them who started the fight,’ the fighting gril’s grandmother told Fox.
One of the girls’ classmates told the newssource, ‘Everybody in school is mostly laughing about it, but parents say you shouldn’t do that because they think it’s a bad thing for children.’
While the two older women are facing charges for “promoting and antagonizing two juveniles to fight,” the two fighters have each been charged with affray – disturbing the peace or being involved in a public brawl.
The original video of the fight was removed from YouTube for violations of its terms of service.
