This may be my favorite news story EVER! When is the made for TV movie coming out? http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2916694 Carpool moms' feud heads to court A year later, the 2 women haven't resolved alleged slapping incident By ANDREW TILGHMAN Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle It's usually the students who need to be warned against fighting at school. At a private campus in far west Houston, however, the admonishment might have come in handy in the carpool line — for the parents. A spat that started almost a year ago, in the line to pick up children after classes at the Village School, will move into a Houston municipal court today as a 40-year-old mother faces a misdemeanor assault charge. Sandra Chiang denies reaching into Shannon Rechter's sport utility vehicle and slapping her in the face afterRechter cut in line while other parents were waiting and chatting outside the school. Chiang could be fined up to $500 if convicted. "It's a total lie," Chiang, who has a third-grader and kindergartner at the school and is on the parent advisory board, said this week. "It's a really ridiculous situation, and it's a waste of taxpayer money and time." The incident ignited a yearlong feud that has included the assault charge, a counterclaim of vandalism, allegations of harassment and the removal of Rechter's two children from the school. The two stay-at-home mothers had never met before Dec. 13, 2003, when Chiang left her car idling as the carpool line moved forward, and Rechter, 38, wedged into the space ahead of her. ''She immediately began yelling at me for cutting in line, and the more I tried to explain the madder she became," Rech-ter said. ''At that point, she reached in, struck me across the face and quickly ran back to her car as if nothing happened." The slap left a red handprint on her face but did not require medical attention, Rechter said. Chiang contends that her SUV was "keyed" by Rechter several weeks later. The hood and a door were scraped, causing an estimated $1,600 in damage, she says. Rechter denies vandalizing the SUV, but Chiang's attorney, Roy Camberg, says he is having fingerprint analysis conducted, and they are considering their options under civil and criminal law. Rechter says her 4-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son soon felt uncomfortable around Chiang, who frequently volunteers at the Village School. She decided not to enroll them there this school year. "My kids used to come home and say, 'Mommy, she's always staring at me,' " Rechter said. Such an intense dispute is highly unusual for the school at 13077 Westella, off Dairy Ashford. The campus enrolls about 700 students from prekindergarten through the eighth grade. Tuition ranges up to $9,350 a year. Betty Moore, a director at the campus, called the dispute "a trivial thing" and said the school had no role in it. Usually, she noted, parents have no problems in the carpool line. "It goes very smoothly," Moore said. "We have 700 kids go through every day, and it works very well." City prosecutor Arthur Crumpton declined to comment. Rechter says school officials and law enforcement authorities didn't take her seriously when she first reported the incident. It took numerous calls to police and the city prosecutor's office to get the case scheduled for trial, she says. This is just AWESOME! Fingerprint analysis in this just makes it better. Maybe they could get Matlock on the case!
hilarious!!! when i was in law school and my wife and i just got married, we lived in the apartments right across the street from this school. little did we know it was such a "rough" neighborhood!
