Man, I swear some of you are some high horse riding gimps. Under no condition should any man hit a woman?!? You're not serious are you? If your wife pulls a gun on you, would you hit her? Life is not black and white. I watched a Judge Joe Brown case the other day where some girl was explaining to the judge how she beats boys up all the time. She didn't exactly look danty. I guess the guys all went by your rules that men should never hit a woman.
Someone stated in another thread that this "man can't hit woman" stuff stems back to when women were housewives and men were the bread winners. Guess what, that doesn't fly anymore. I'm not saying men should go around beating their wives, but please, please step off that high horse you're on. Come live with the rest of society that has many grey areas. There are a lot of women out there that think they can do whatever they want to a guy and he won't hit her back. Screw that. Reap what you sew.
In any case, from all of the details I've heard this is FAR FAR from a wife beating. The two facts that are the most serious are, he threw a cell phone at her, and he hit her with a piece of cardboard. I guess we should throw him in prison, those sound like some SERIOUS hardcore wifebeating there. Next he's going to spill a drink on her and people will be claiming wifebeating.
Life is not so simple, and if this happened to anyone else it would be brushed aside. For some reason I guess these witnesses think they'll be famous, because I gaurantee if some unknown person had been in the same situation the police would never have been called.
And lastly, someone stated that this is his second offense? Does anyone remember the fact that HE (yes him) HE called the police the first time. The charges were dropped. Sounds like a lot of people are putting 2 and 2 together and getting 34535234.