Teacher handcuffed leaving school board meeting



all the news seems to be saying is that she was told to leave the meeting after protesting the raise granted to the superintendent. Could have been she was asked to leave the building and refused, or she behaved in some way that justified her being cuffed, or whoever cuffed her vastly overstepped their authority. None of the early news reports went into that.
 
No it isn't. A discussion about a single contract has nothing to do with other contracts and especially not anything to do with a union negotiated contract where things like cost of living raises would be part of a negotiation, not a board meeting.

Talking about a raise he is being given in his new contract and how that is not right and illustrating such is entirely on the subject of his new contract because said raise is in his new contract your attempt at unabashed mental gymnastics to try and convince us otherwise notwithstanding. That dog just aint a gonna hunt.
 


Honestly, is no one concerned that a citizen's first amendment rights might have been violated? This is a case where a governmental body had someone arrested for speaking in a public forum.

Lots of people are including the very superintendent whose contract they were talking about. He said he wished he'd stood up for her and her right to speak. And yes, I am concerned.
 
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The video shows him saying you need to leave and reaching out to take her by the arm. She said don't touch me and grabbed her bag and started to follow him out. What were you watching?

It's all right there in the video. She disrupted the meeting by going off the subject of the contract when she talked about the raise in the contract when she was given the floor to do so, refused to leave by walking out, and tried to escape and resisted arrest by cooperating with the officer that cuffed her in the hall and asking why she's being arrested.
 
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Because an arrest, being charged, being tried, and being convicted all require different burdens and different people entirely. An arresting officer should not weigh the likeliness of charges being filed (a decision made by someone else) when they detain someone. There are also cases where it isn't any member of the police force or prosecuting authority that makes the call anyway. If a victim isn't cooperating or decides not to press charges that doesn't mean the initial detainment was wrong.


What crime was he detaining her for? A police officer can't just detain someone because they don't like what she is saying or she wasn't walking fast enough. And there was NO grounds to take her to the ground. She was not under arrest, therefore couldn't resist arrest.
 
What crime was he detaining her for? A police officer can't just detain someone because they don't like what she is saying or she wasn't walking fast enough. And there was NO grounds to take her to the ground. She was not under arrest, therefore couldn't resist arrest.

Bingo. I find it pretty shocking that people are so okay with the whole situation. I keep seeing the comments of, well, "she didn't follow the forum rules about speaking", or "she didn't move fast enough", or, "if an officer tells you to do something, you do it", which makes me wonder when, as Americans, we became tolerant of such police state tactics. Pretty scary, if you ask me!
 
The thing is, while I understand her frustration and anger, I have NO respect for anybody who starts to call out civil, First Amendment, rights, and play that card without very obvious and valid reason.
I think being unlawfully detained is an extremely valid reason to assert one's civil rights.

Without the first amendment, we are a nation of lawlessness governed not by the people but by those with power and influence.
 
Smokeyblue, yes, IF it is established that she was unlawfully detained....
Which is probable... I still do not see where she did anything that warranted being physically coerced and manhandled.
Then yes, I totally agree with you!!!!

I was referring to the specific 'Freedom of Speech' thing.
She has total freedom of speech.
But, my only question on that would be that nobody is guaranteed the freedom to stand up and say anything they like, without regard to policies, etc, in an organized meeting.

As I had mentioned.... She could stand out in front of the building, with dozens of other teachers, and wave signs and yell as much she wants.
Nobody would have been able to touch her.

I am just not making the automatic assumption that her Freedom of Speech was violated because she was not guaranteed to stand up and say whatever she wanted without consequence.

It does appear that she was purposefully 'silenced' when the one guy in charge seemed to indicate, the very minute she was speaking, for an employee of the School District to take action to silence her.
I am thinking that yes, strong-arm good-ole-boys tactics were used here to silence somebody, based on the fact that they just didn't like what she had to say.
It very much looks that way to me.... As I had mentioned.
It is just that there are still some things that are not clear about how it all came down.
I am just not quite ready to be the judge and jury.
 
It's all right there in the video. She disrupted the meeting by going off the subject of the contract when she talked about the raise in the contract when she was given the floor to do so, refused to leave by walking out, and tried to escape and resisted arrest by cooperating with the officer that cuffed her in the hall and asking why she's being arrested.

Not sure a public board can set a topic for a public comment. The speaker picks the topic. They certainly could have not called on her, since they KNEW what she was likely to say. Or set a time limit of say 2 minutes, which is what is done at our City Council meetings. BUT, given what I know about the situation, the only wrong doing I see was by the Marshall. The ACLU has entered the situation.
Like I said before, she probably will get a settlement from the school district, from public funds. I suspect the Marshall will be fired. And the Marshall may get a settlement from the school district from public funds for wrongful termination.
 
Not sure a public board can set a topic for a public comment. The speaker picks the topic. They certainly could have not called on her, since they KNEW what she was likely to say. Or set a time limit of say 2 minutes, which is what is done at our City Council meetings. BUT, given what I know about the situation, the only wrong doing I see was by the Marshall. The ACLU has entered the situation.
Like I said before, she probably will get a settlement from the school district, from public funds. I suspect the Marshall will be fired. And the Marshall may get a settlement from the school district from public funds for wrongful termination.
Sounds about right.
 
Because an arrest, being charged, being tried, and being convicted all require different burdens and different people entirely. An arresting officer should not weigh the likeliness of charges being filed (a decision made by someone else) when they detain someone. There are also cases where it isn't any member of the police force or prosecuting authority that makes the call anyway. If a victim isn't cooperating or decides not to press charges that doesn't mean the initial detainment was wrong.



Except that it was off topic. If she was called on and asked an irrelevant question, as it appears she did, then she was indeed out of order even if called upon. The discussion was about the superintendent's contract and raise and not anyone else, including the teachers. Those are done as a union negotiation and would not be relevant at all to a non-union contract. Well, at least that is how it is set up here.
She asked him how can you accept this raise when you know...
How is that irrelevant or off topic?
 
In what I saw, she was leaving...
Perhaps there was more to that than the clip I saw?
But, she was walking out, on her own volition.

I didn't see it as being slowly enough to be an issue where anyone would have the right to physically use contact.

But, all of that is not 100% clear, from my limited info.

My guess is that there is no actual teachers union in that State.
There are no unions in the Southern States here that I am aware of.
But, yes, obviously, this meeting was not the best, or most correct and appropriate way to address these concerns.

PS: just to throw this out there... based only on perception... not on pertinent facts, This State seems to known for it's extreme levels of political corruption, good-ole-boys networks in charge, etc...
There is a teachers union in Louisiana, but it’s voluntary & you have to pay dues to belong. I don’t if that’s usual for unions. I don’t anything about them. But the dues are expensive & many teachers don’t find it affordable or with it. Absolutely on the corruption!!! Can’t stress this enough! That’s probably why I can’t view the incident as completely objective. And the smaller the parish, the worst it can be! In a small parish, I once had a landlord who had connections get a warrant for my arrest b/c she thought we took her pot rack when we moved out. We didn’t & it was her attic, but we had to get our atty to go to court to get this dropped b/c it was a civil matter (if anything). I had/have never been arrested & was terrified that the police were going to come before the atty was able to get this handled. Crazy to think I could have been arrested for that!
 
I don't know why they think forcibly removing a teacher from a meeting for asking a question and continuing to talk would be the right decision.

That decision right there proves the guy isn't smart enough to deserve that raise.

And what was the police officer thinking? Is he not able to use judgement? Did he mistake the school board meeting for some kind of violent clash where he needed to be hard nosed and allegedly assault the teacher? He couldn't take a minute, and wait as long as necessary for her to leave? Who cares if it took an hour? Was anyone under impending danger? Did he have to have her out immediately? Can he not assess a situation? Was it worth all this? Sadly for him, the answer is a resounding, "NO".

I really wonder how people can forget to think in these situations.
Local article said that he was sued in another jurisdiction when he was an officer there for excessive force when he slammed a 62 yr old man’s head to ten ground during the arrest. He settled out of court.
 
It's all right there in the video. She disrupted the meeting by going off the subject of the contract when she talked about the raise in the contract when she was given the floor to do so, refused to leave by walking out, and tried to escape and resisted arrest by cooperating with the officer that cuffed her in the hall and asking why she's being arrested.


You must be watching a different video than I watched.
 

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