Thursday, March 09, 2006

Slopeside or Ringside?

A judge has criticized as too lenient the sentence suggested Wednesday in the case of Randell Berg, 52, was who arrested for allegedly punching a 16-year-old girl on the slopes at Steamboat Springs in January.

Berg pleaded guilty Wednesday to third-degree assault. Under terms of the plea bargain Berg would get one year of unsupervised probation, take anger management classes, perform 80 hours of community service and serve a two-day jail sentence.

"This is a very bizarre occurrence. No one should ever be assaulted on a ski slope. It’s outrageous a grown man would attack a woman. It’s even more outrageous for that woman to be a young girl,” Judge James Garrecht said after tentatively approving the deal.

According to the AP, Garrecht said he thought Berg’s punishment should be harsher and postponed sentencing for six weeks for a pre-sentencing investigation to obtain additional insight into the case.

Berg allegedly punched the teen snowboarder after she collided with his 8-year-old daughter on the mountain. Neither girl was seriously injured.

The deputy district attorney says the girl and her family OK'd the plea. Berg's attorney said Berg "has no hesitation admitting that what he did was wrong.”

Is this proposed sentence sufficient? Too harsh? When, if ever, did you come close to "losing it" over another's action on the slopes (or trail or river or pool)?

(I'm trying to live by Jefferson's words: "When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred." I'm searching to see if he had a guideline for outright punching.)

- Dena (adding to Deb and Dave's blog from the newsroom)

2 comments:

UltraRob said...

His behavior is totally unacceptable and the sentence is way too light.

Dave Philipps said...

I've heard though, through employees at the mountain, that the girl was a real jerk too.