An Arizona teenager has been charged with assault following an incident in which he and two friends allegedly targeted his ex-girlfriend “relentlessly” during a gym class. The attack, involving dodgeballs, reportedly left the girl with bruises.
Abel Schipper, the accused, insisted that he did not intend to harm his classmate when he, along with his pals, launched dodgeballs at her during warm-ups at Mayer High School, located about an hour from Phoenix, back in December 2025.
“I didn’t think a dodgeball would hurt. And these are small ones too. So you can squeeze them and like they compress and stuff,” Schipper explained to AZ Family on Wednesday.
A social worker involved in the case contacted the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office soon after the alleged incident, claiming the boys had “relentlessly assaulted her with dodgeballs when she came out of the bathroom.”
According to a police report acquired by the outlet, the girl was reportedly hospitalized with significant bruising on her upper right rib cage and lower right abdomen as a result of the incident.
Schipper and the other boys told police that the dodgeball warm-up was already underway when they targeted the girl and were adamant it wasn’t malicious.
Schipper admitted to the outlet that he threw a dodgeball at his ex-girlfriend and “hit her,” while another boy missed and a third “also hit” her.
“Obviously I’m going to have to target somebody for dodgeball. It’s dodgeball,” the 13-year-old said. “You have to choose somebody, throw the ball, then try to get them out.”
The teen’s mother, Cecily Schipper, told AZ Family she had no idea police had interviewed her son at school over the incident — only finding out months later when a letter from the Yavapai County Juvenile Justice Center arrived informing her that Abel had been charged with misdemeanor assault.
“It is absolutely ridiculous. This is a game that every kid in the nation plays at some point in their life,” the mother told the outlet.
“They’re considering the dodgeball a weapon and that he knowingly or willingly, recklessly harmed this girl just playing dodgeball in PE.”
Cecily Schipper said she would understand her son would deserve “punishment” if the situation was “boys will be boys,” but thinks things have gone too far.
She then claimed that her son’s ex-girlfriend allegedly texted her “for rides home after this incident happened in December.”
“It’s just strange. And I was friends with her mom as well,” she said.
The case goes before a judge on Aug. 17.
In 2019, a 10-year-old Michigan boy faced charges of assault when he was accused of throwing a dodgeball at a student’s head, which injured the peer, during a schoolyard game.
The boy’s mother, Cameishi Triplett Lindley, said at the time that the ball thrown by her son resulted in a student suffering a concussion, according to a Facebook fundraiser at the time.
Her son was suspended from school and charged with assault, which were dropped after the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office reviewed the case, according to CBS.