More Season’s Beatings From Sunshine State

DECEMBER 17--A Florida Woman was arrested yesterday for battery after allegedly striking her sister with a Christmas decoration during a 2 AM domestic dispute, according to court records.

Police allege that Shirley Rogers, 55, was arguing with her boyfriend when her sibling sought to “diffuse the situation.” However, that attempt failed, cops say.

The victim told investigators that while she was “trying to calm the defendant down,” Rogers (seen at right) pushed her in the chest and then “grabbed a Christmas cone” and struck her in the torso with the holiday adornment.

An arrest affidavit notes that the weapon was a “beaded cone tree used for decoration.”

Upon being struck by the Christmas cone, the victim asked Rogers’s boyfriend to call 911. Officers responding to Rogers’s residence in Oxford, a community about 85 miles northeast of Tampa, noted that the victim had a “small vertical cut on her left side, in the area she indicated the defendant had struck her.” The woman also complained of pain in her left side and ribs.

Rogers was arrested on a misdemeanor battery charge and booked into the Sumter County jail. She was released from custody last night after posting $500 bond.

The arrest affidavit does not indicate whether the beaded Christmas cone was seized as evidence. (3 pages)