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Youth softball umpire says she was punched in the face by a mom: 'It's getting worse and worse.'
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- Youth softball umpire says she was punched in the face by a mom: 'It's getting worse and worse.'
Word travels fast in Ellisville, Mississippi, and Kristi Moore didn't want her children to hear the news from somebody else. So she called her 17-year-old daughter and explained why she'd be walking through the door with serious injuries to the left side of her face.
Hours earlier on the evening of April 9, Moore became one of the latest victims of violence unleashed by a parent against an official at a youth sports game, according to police. Days after the incident, Moore shared a photo of her black eye and bruised face on social media that went viral, setting off a discussion about abuse umpires and referees face.
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The worst part wasn't the swelling around her left eye or the pain in her ear. It was the reactions of her daughter and 13-year-old son.
"They took one look at me and started crying," Moore, 47, told USA TODAY Sports.
"Mom, we don't want you to do this," they told her. "We don't want you to get hurt."
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While Moore was umpiring a softball game in the nearby town of Laurel for 12-and-under girls, a mother of one of the players became unruly and screamed profanity across the field. The situation escalated when the mother challenged one of Moore's calls at second base.
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"That she was going to (expletive) me up," Moore recalled. Moore told police later that Kiara Nichelle Thomas threatened her several times, according to a copy of the Laurel Police Department incident report obtained by USA TODAY Sports.
Moore told Thomas, 32, of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, to leave the field. Thomas was the second person Moore had ejected from the premises. When she refused, Moore told the team's coach that the game would be forfeited if Thomas didn't leave. A coach told Thomas to leave, Moore said. She did, but not before threatening Moore again, per the incident report.
After the game, Thomas returned and approached Moore, who said she instructed Thomas to step away, according to the incident report.
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Then came the punch. The strike caused a black eye, cuts and scratches underneath Moore's right eye.
According to the report, Thomas was immediately informed the police were being called. She fled the scene but a parks and recreation employee snapped a cell phone photo of the black Chevrolet Crossover Thomas drove, including the license plate number.
A department officer pulled over Thomas at an intersection at 7:18 p.m. Thomas was arrested on one charge of simple assault, Laurel police chief Tommy Cox said; Moore identified her by photograph. Booking photos showed her wearing a "Mother of the Year" shirt, and she was released on bond.
Umpiring treatment 'getting worse and worse'
During her umpiring career, there has always been traditional heckling, said Moore, the umpire in charge in Mississippi for the United States Fastpitch Association. She's been calling youth games for about a decade.
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"It's just getting worse and worse," she said. Threats of violence are routine. "Something has to be done about this. It's not just softball, baseball. It's every official."
National Association of Sports Officials president Barry Mano would like to see the organizations in charge, in this case the United States Fastpitch Association, take more of a lead. USFA founder and national director John Cain said "our whole USFA umpire staff has been supporting her."
"She's done a great job of bringing this to the spotlight," Cain told USA TODAY Sports by phone. "It takes a lot of courage."
Cain called Moore for the first time 13 days after the assault. Cain said the team Thomas' child played on has been banned for the entire season under the organization's zero-tolerance policy.
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Mano attributes the rise in harassment of youth sports officials to a less civil society.
"And we're more pressure-packed," he told USA TODAY Sports. "Then we get involved with sporting events. This is sort of a classic case. We have a perpetrator being a fan slash mother, who's upset, and decides to cold-cock an umpire. That's sort of how this happens."
This sort of assault, Mano said, doesn't happen at the professional or collegiate level. It's rare during high school events.
"But it's really these levels, like the one in Mississippi, that we see the biggest problem," he added.
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A viral video that circulated recently showed a coach tackling an umpire after he was ejected for arguing at a youth game in Texas. The umpire was taken to the hospital .
"It's kind of to the point now, you're dreading going, because of parent and coach's behavior. It's not just for the officials, it's for the kids," Moore said. "This is not OK, to be exhibiting this behavior in front of the children."
"It's going to take an adult population that has to get serious," said Mano, who founded Referee Magazine in 1976.
Discouraging violent behavior through the law
States such as Alabama, Delaware, Florida and Nevada classify assaults of sports officials as felonies, according to NASO. Others have imposed fines eclipsing $1,000 to discourage violence.
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Moore would like to see the Mississippi state legislature, which doesn't have such a law on its books, become active in protecting youth sports stewards.
Codifying sports officials as a "defined class" would provide a necessary deterrence, Mano said.
"There's such a lack of respect for authority … what kind of example is being set for these kids when we resort to violence because we don't like a call in a ballgame? It's totally unnecessary," Moore said. "Something has to be done to enforce stricter laws and punishment for this kind of behavior."
Abuse from parents and fans has a lasting impact on youth sports and those who officiate kids' games. NASO conducted a survey in 2017 with 18,000 respondents answering a variety of questions. It found that the primary reason individuals stop officiating, Mano said, "is this bad behavior."
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Mano said that referees sign up with the presumption that everybody will act reasonably during youth games.
"And it turns out that presumption is wrong," he said.
Moore isn't sure if she will ever go back to umpiring. She found somebody else to cover the two recreation league games she was scheduled to ump this past week. The emotional wounds need to heal as much as the physical ones.
"I can't say I'll never get back out there," Moore said. "But I'm not ready to at this point."
Follow Chris Bumbaca on Twitter @BOOMbaca .
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Softball ump punched in face by a mom speaks out on rising violence
