It is one hell of a punch.

It is not a defensive jab or a lazy left hook. It's a powerful, sharp left cross, and it connects with devastating force, knocking the victim to the ground instantaneously.

The recipient, clearly, is down for the count.

The problem here is I'm not describing a boxing match between two fairly-matched men or women in the same weight category. I'm describing a 51-year-old, 6-foot, 5-inch tall man who weighs 250 pounds absolutely clocking an 11-year-old girl.

By now, you've probably seen it, too, as the video of the incident at Asheville Mall on Saturday night, Jan. 12, quickly went viral.

The 51-year-old man, David Steven Bell, was arrested and faces three misdemeanors, assault on a child under 12 and two charges of assault on a female. The latter two charges come from shoving incidents with other girls there at the scene, according to police.

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The 40-second video clip attracted national attention, and hundreds of comments — which of course turned ugly real quick. Our in-house editor who monitors web traffic estimated well over half of the comments he was seeing suggested Bell was justified in knocking the girl out.

Bell's attorney, Andy Banzhoff issued a statement saying Bell, who was at the mall with his family, was leaving a bookstore when "he observed a large pack of youths harassing a woman." Banzhoff uses the word "pack" five times in describing the group.

Allow me to pause here to issue another statement explaining the obvious: The word "pack" should not be used in describing a group of humans, regardless of race or age, as it infers animal characteristics. You know, as it's the plural for a group of dogs, or wolves or hyenas.

This is a case laden with racial tension, as Bell is white and the group of kids, and the victim of the punch, are African American. Banzhoff's repeated use of the word "pack" is lazy at best. At worst, it could easily be perceived as race baiting.

So yes, allow me in my role as Capt. Obvious to note that's a really poor word choice there. At the very least, learn to use the "synonym" function on a Word document or buy a thesaurus.

More troubling were the comments that quickly piled up after the story was published online. I shouldn't be surprised any more, but online commenters never fail to amaze and disappoint me.

I'm not going to give them the satisfaction of reprinting them, but suffice it to say they included a lot of victim blaming and shaming, as well as a lot of suggestions that Bell had no other choice and had to defend himself.

Hey, here's the first thought that came to my mind: Walk away! Seriously, law enforcement agencies will tell you the best idea is to walk away and contact law enforcement in these situations, and that makes a lot of sense.

Pull out your cell phone and call 911.

That's right. Just walk off, right back into the book store, and alert a manager that kids are fighting outside and they need to call the cops.

How is a huge, 51-year-old man going to come out looking good in any way by getting physical with an 11-year-old?

If someone's life was in danger, that's a different matter, one requiring immediate action. That doesn't seem to be the case here, though.

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Look, Bell has suffered a traumatic brain injury and has PTSD, according to his attorney, and he feels terrible about what he did. Brain injuries and post-traumatic stress can affect people's decision-making and judgment, so it's fair to consider those factors when forming an opinion.

The video shows Bell being pushed from behind at one point, and he does have several kids around him. it's a tense scene.

But it also shows him pushing the 11-year-old girl, hard. When she regains her balance, she comes at Bell, and he decks her.

He doesn't push her again, or try to wrap her up in a hold, or walk off. He punches her in the face. Hard.

To be clear, this is not in any way OK. Consider the size differential, for starters — he's probably almost three times her weight. It's hard to imagine this girl inflicting serious injury on him, and a punch thrown by a large man can carry a lot of force.

Let's also address maturity. It's just a fact that an 11-year-old kid's brain is not fully developed, especially in that crucial judgment center. The burden for solid judgment and action thus falls to the older, more mature person.

That's just the way life is. We may have a case where a person's judgment was impaired, but some commenters suggested, essentially, the girl had it coming and they'd do the same thing.

I think we'd all agree that punching a 5-year-old in the face as hard as you can would be wrong under just about any circumstances. Same with a kid of age 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10. And I'd say 11, 12, 13 and 14, probably even older.

The point is, society draws a line here.

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The bottom line is she's a kid. She's certainly learned just how dangerous and unpredictable people can become in a tense situation.

She didn't deserve to be flattened by a grown man throwing a devastating punch.

This is the opinion of John Boyle. Contact him at 828-232-5847 or jboyle@citizentimes.com