By Rachel La Cort. .c The Associated Press
MIAMI, 5 (AP) - Relatives of Elian Gonzalez have filed a complaint with police over the recent meeting between the 6-year-old and his Cuban grandmothers, a police source said Saturday.
The relatives were outraged after one of the grandmothers described playfully biting the boy's tongue and unzipping his pants during the reunion.
The source at the Miami Beach Police Department, who requested anonymity, said the complaint was filed Friday.
``There was a report filed and there is going to be an investigation made into the complaint made on that report,'' said the source, who would not provide further details.
Elian played outside of his relatives' home Saturday before leaving for the weekend with his Miami family to an undisclosed location.
Armando Gutierrez, spokesman for the Miami relatives, would not confirm that the complaint was filed.
Through Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., Elian's relatives requested a meeting with Attorney General Janet Reno to discuss unspecified new information about the case, Justice spokeswoman Carole Florman said. The request was being considered.
In an interview on Cuban television Tuesday, Elian's paternal grandmother, Mariela Quintana, said she had ``played jokes'' with the boy during a U.S. government-ordered meeting Jan. 26 at the home of a Roman Catholic nun in Florida.
``I even opened up his zipper,'' she said. ``I told him, `Let me see, let me see ... if it has grown.'''
Gutierrez said the family was furious. ``That is not a Cuban custom,'' he said.
But in Cuba, none of several dozen people asked about the incident in recent days found anything strange about Quintana's behavior.
Uva de Aragon of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University said Quintana's behavior might seem odd to people in the United States, but it was probably innocent.
``The way the woman said it on national television shows it wasn't something perverted,'' de Aragon said. ``She was joking with a little kid, trying to get him to respond, the same as if she were tickling him or trying to see his muscles.''
She said in the Cuban culture, fathers, particularly in lower classes, often boast about the size of their sons' genitals, associating that with bravery and virility.
Elian was rescued on Thanksgiving after clinging to an inner tube for two days following a shipwreck that killed his mother. The first-grader has been living in Miami with his great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, and his U.S. relatives hope to keep him despite an immigration order to send him back.
AP-NY-02-05-00 1816EST
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