Arrested Louisiana teacher says First Amendment rights were violated, city marshal 'needs training'
The turmoil followed the board's 5-3 vote Monday night approving a new three-year contract raising Vermilion Schools Superintendent Jerome Puyau's salary by roughly $30,000, to about $140,000 annually, with incentive targets that could add 3 percent a year.
Video of the meeting shows that Hargrave addressed the superintendent directly after raising her hand to speak and being recognized.
She questioned Puyau's raise, given that teachers haven't received an increase in 10 years, despite growing class sizes and other demands.
Fontana then declared that her comment wasn't "germane" to the vote on the contract, and banged his gavel in an attempt to silence her. According to school board member Kibbie Pillette, Fontana then beckoned off-camera to the officer, who interrupted Hargrave while she was speaking and ordered her out.
"I'm going," she said, making her way out. The officer followed her into the hallway, where moments later, a camera recorded her on the floor with her hands behind her back, being handcuffed and complaining that the officer had pushed her down.
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Asked by the AP on Thursday who's directly to blame for the incident, Hargrave said "Anthony Fontana."
Fontana has not returned calls for an interview with the AP, but has defended his actions and that of the officer.
Hilts was accused along with another officer of slamming an ailing 62-year-old man's head onto a concrete slab in 2011. He left the city of Scott's police force later that year, for unrelated reasons the police chief said. Scott denied using excessive force, and the man's federal suit was settled in 2016.
Now a local pastor and a resource officer at J.H. Williams Middle School in Vermilion Parish, Hilts hasn't spoken publicly about Hargrave's arrest.
School Board Prez Calls Busted Teacher 'Poor Little Woman'
(NEWSER) – The story of the Louisiana middle school teacher arrested after speaking up at a school board meeting continues, now with a closer look at how women in the district are treated. When Deyshia Hargrave was carted off in handcuffs Monday after calmly questioning the $30,000 raise for Vermilion Parish School District Superintendent Jerome Puyau, Laura LeBeouf, one of the two female members of the school board, noted, "I have never seen a man removed from this room," per KATC . Critics of the school board point to footage of another recent board meeting, where a man made "an impassioned plea" about his recently deceased dad and wasn't removed as Hargrave was. Even celebrity host Sharon Osbourne backed up Hargrave on The Talk , noting: "She wasn't being violent. … They did that because she's a woman."
Stoking the fire are remarks made by school board president Anthony Fontana, who told WAFB Hargrave was "the poor little woman" whom "everybody wants to side [with]." "She could have walked out and nothing would have happened," he said. (In a video of the incident, Hargrave had indeed picked up her purse and walked out, only to be handcuffed in the hall.) Fontana also says Hargrave broke rules, including keeping her speech "civilized," and refuted any gender disparity, noting a board member's husband had once been banned. "All this stuff about this is a woman's issue is BS," he said. In a video posted on the Louisiana Association of Educators Facebook page, Hargrave says, "They … tried to take away my First Amendment rights to speak, and I'm appalled at this, and you should be, too." She tells NBC News that "it's sad that a woman has to be forcibly, violently removed from a board meeting for people to start caring."
Look on the bright side, Larry...
She wasn't shot.
I don't think this has anything to do with gender and the continued playing of the card will make it become mute. She dared however to challenge the Supr over pay and he might have been waiting for that windfall to put in a pool! They don't say what the pay rate was before the anticipated raise but most people (male and female) make 150,000 and up, some way up. It always fascinated me that the easier a job is the more it pays.
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