News: The Kickin' Vixen

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Drawn By Knave


I'm not a wuss, insists the humiliated teen booted by a woman fed up with lewd catcalls on the street.

Not only that -- Jason Batisse says the Kickin' Vixen took out her feminist frustrations on the wrong guy. Darn, but
isn't there always another side to a good story.

Batisse is the 18-year-old vilified this week as the wimp who harassed a pretty woman -- and then ran to mama --
after she decided to teach him a lesson by kicking him where it hurts.

Later charged with assault, Corinne Branigan, 30, became the toast of the town, with many women, and even men,
applauding her cojones for finally taking on the dinosaurs who can make walking down the street a humiliating
ordeal -- while Batisse went underground in embarrassment.

Now the Bishop Marrocco student, along with two of his friends, has decided to come out of hiding to defend his
honour. On a park bench overlooking the busy Gardiner Expressway, they puff on their cigarettes and insist Batisse
wasn't even one of those wolf-whistling the lady that night.

"Now I'm the laughing stock of the city," complains the sullen 18-year-old from behind his black Nike cap. "In my
mind, I did the right thing. Other people would have given her a knock to the head."

Seven of them had been hanging out at the park last Monday night, listening to hip hop on their boom box and
playing soccer in the record heat. Adam Chapman, 19, admits he called out to Branigan when he saw her walking to
the laundromat along Wright Ave. "She looks about 18, so we just said hi to her. It wasn't meant in a rude way," he
says with a flirtatious smile. "That's how I meet girls. You have to meet them somehow. But I was raised by my mom
by herself so I have respect for women."

It was "two other guys" who started the lewd whistles, he insists, and they were the ones who began hurling
obscenities at her when she told them to leave her be.

Still, they thought that was the end of it until they saw the angry woman return with her laundry and head straight
for their group, yelling through the darkness that she had just moved in across the street and wanted to be left
alone. "I understand that she's had years of harassment, but don't take it out on the world," Chapman says. "We
were trying to tell her it's a compliment, relax ..."

Ah, boys. So cute. So thick.

It was when Batisse told her to just get out of the park, they say, that he received a surprising hook to his left cheek
and a few well-placed kicks to his stomach and groin.

Branigan doesn't deny decking him, but at issue is a certain broken bottle. She says he threatened her with it before
she fought back. The beefy Batisse, an easy 180 pounds, insists he had to use it to scare away his 118-pound
attacker.

All of which will be for the courts to decide. In the meantime, these guys just don't understand how some street
flirtation landed them on the wrong side of public opinion. "I don't think there's anything wrong with it," says
Jason's cousin, Ray Batisse, 19. "Some girls like it; some girls don't, I guess." He just may be catching on after all.

"But he's a sissy for getting kicked in the balls?" asks Chapman. "Would he be big man if he punched her out? I
don't understand that."

Neither does Batisse's mama, who says her son is so humiliated that he won't even stray from her side. "This media
thing has really hurt his ego. They might think Jason's a wuss, but in my opinion, he did the right thing by walking
away without hitting her back. I taught my son good upbringing to my best ability."

That included not harassing women, she says.

Meanwhile, she's proud that her son called her and insisted on pressing charges. Batisse says he had to go to the
hospital to be checked out and, while he has no bruises, he's on antibiotics to fight any infection he might contract
through the scratch on his nose. "No lady has the right to hit a young man in the groin, especially if I didn't do
anything."

Branigan, for her part, stands by her actions. "I'm sure there is another side to the story," she shrugs. The aspiring
actress is rather confident these days, with a phone that has been ringing off the hook with support, including one
lawyer who has offered to represent her for free.

And while the Kickin' Vixen's methods certainly leave something to be desired, she may have accomplished what
she wanted -- at least with this group. Asked if they'd catcall a lady again, the answer was a resounding, "No."

"I treat women differently now," Batisse says. "I'm not going to talk to them. If I do, I get kicked in the groin."

"I'm taking a break," concedes Chapman. "A long break."

And with that, the bruised boys head back home to their moms.

Originally from http://www.canoe.ca/TorontoNews/04_n2.html July 11, 1999