Teacher arrested in Abbeville, Louisiana.....

[ToomuchStuff]

I doubt the superintendent will be doing that. Seen a video interview with him, saying his whole family is educators, and are receiving death threats. He understands their position but the school is now 6th in the state, at a pay level that is 56th in the state, so when is a good time to ask for a raise. (paraphrased as I saw the video yesterday)

[Zoe Girl]

Sounds like the raise is only part of it, and no one should get death threats. My god. I have no idea of what his work is like, if he is working towards getting teachers more money, what other sups make, etc. It does seem like a good meeting facilitator could have worked with what was happening, i have seen some facilitators who are amazing at managing conflict.

it did look like she left when she was asked, so that is on the officers. And we should be able to express ourselves in some way, not sure if she broke a rule or was just shut down

[Williamsmith]

There are usually strict open comment periods and sometimes you are required to register intentions of speaking so that they have a rough idea how long and on what topic you might be addressing. It looks like she complied and left so I don’t get the resisting arrest charge. Had she not been arrested....it would have been a nothing burger. But now that it is....the Superintendent and the Police have a need to gain the public confidence back.

[dado potato]

Death threats have been taken seriously in Louisiana since 1935, when Huey Long was assassinated by an opponent.

I have seen few details about the death threats directed at this school board. One snippet was that a caller said "he might come down to the school board office"... and that was interpreted as a sufficient threat to lock down the building. Under the lock-down persons who were expected to have business with the school board ... and "looked all right" .... would be let in through the locked doors. The death threats have been referred to the FBI for investigation.

From this distance, The chair's ruling during the school board meeting that the teacher's questions were "not germane" suggests defensiveness to me. Likewise, prompting the uniformed deputy marshal to eject her from the meeting reminds me of tactics used by Donald Trump to deal with hecklers at his rallies. For example, in Harrisburg PA 4/29/2017, Trump says at the podium: "That's right, get him out of here. Get him out."... as 5 uniformed officers restrain the protester on the ground. In that context, Deyshia Hargrave's call to "Heal our fears ... Come out ... You have a voice..." goes far beyond a budget decision by a school board.

[bae]

I would like to know more details about what transpired before summoning up my outrage.

A quick search for news stories popped up this:

"The station says the teacher had addressed the board about teacher salaries and raises, and school board president Anthony Fontana at one point ruled her "out of order."

A city marshal on duty at the meeting approached her as she continued to speak and directed her to leave the room. She was then apprehended in the hallway."

I run meetings of governmental bodies. Sometimes they are contentious during the public access/testimony portion of the meetings, where we will sometimes have hundreds of people signed up to speak on a touchy subject.

We run these meetings by rules. The rules are made known in advance. If people do not follow the rules, they can be ejected from the meeting. I have had the Sheriff standing by many times to aid in this process. Nobody so far has resisted the simple suggestion that they need to stop what they are doing, and either sit down quietly or leave, once I or the Sheriff has explained the situation politely to them.

I have had several threats of violence directed to me personally, or to other members of my governmental body - these required a less-polite response.

Our meetings aren't on cell-phone video, but they are all video-recorded and live-streamed to the community.

[LDAHL]

There are usually strict open comment periods and sometimes you are required to register intentions of speaking so that they have a rough idea how long and on what topic you might be addressing. It looks like she complied and left so I don’t get the resisting arrest charge. Had she not been arrested....it would have been a nothing burger. But now that it is....the Superintendent and the Police have a need to gain the public confidence back.

Most of the public hearings I've attended are run along those lines. In fairness to the people running them, and the people in attendance, you generally walk a fine line between people getting a fair say and preventing zealots hijacking all the time with "passionate" showboating. Registering one's opposition or support can usually be done in a few minutes. Baying for money in theatrical style is more wasteful and unproductive.

This case seems somewhat extreme, but ejecting the more drama-intensive folks or at least shutting off their microphones can be useful tools in getting through the agenda.