Mom Arrested For Giving Daughter Mace To Fight Bullies

Speaking of how to stop bullies, one mom has come up with a solution that isn’t exactly legal. Tracy Morales and her 17-year-old daughter Clerissa Loucks were both arrested last week after the teen used mace against two girls she describes as bullies. Morales admits that she sent her daughter to school with the spray, and says, “I’d give her the Mace again.”

NBC New York reports that the mother and daughter were charged with criminal possession of a weapon after Loucks sprayed two classmates with pepper spray in the lunch room at Pablo Neruda Academy High School in the Bronx. The girls had to be sent to a hospital for treatment.

Ironically, the students were about to head to a mediation session when the attack occurred. Morales says she had to give her daughter a way to defend herself because she’s four months pregnant and the two other girls were threatening her. Though the NYPD denies it, Loucks says the officers were also too rough when arresting her and showed TV cameras her bruises. “They got really, really physical. They slammed me on the floor, had me face down on my stomach and sat on top of me,” she says.

Morales has a criminal record and two of her convictions suggest she’s made questionable parenting decisions in the past. In addition to being found guilty of grand theft auto and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, she was convicted of conduct detrimental to a child twice. Morales claims she was charged after getting into a fight to defend her son.

The mother and daughter say they have no regrets about what happened. “You can’t continue to bully children,” says Morales. “People are dying over it. Children are committing suicide over it. And I wasn’t going to let my daughter be one of those statistics.” Of course, it’s illegal to send a child to school with a weapon, and administrators were aware of the situation and trying to deal with it. However, if Morales really believed that the two girls were threatening Loucks’ safety, was it justifiable to give her a way to defend herself?