School Teacher Arrested For Dissent
A Language Arts Teacher at Rene Rost Middle School in Kaplan, Louisiana spoke out against a $38,000 raise being given to the school district's superintendent, Jerome Puyau. After verbalizing her disapproval of the move by a school board which hasn't given it's teachers a raise in years, was directed to leave the meeting in the middle of her statement. At the end of her statement she informed the officer that was then preparing to physically remove her that she was leaving the meeting of her own. Upon exiting the room, she was forcefully pushed to the floor by the police, placed in handcuffs, and manhandled as she was physically escorted from the building, and into a patrol car. Her "crime"? "Remaining after having been forbidden", according to The New York Times.
"...there's very little, aside perhaps from baseball, the Marine Corps and apple pie that's more American than holding public officials to account."
~The Washington Examiner
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Even the right-leaning "Washington Examiner" concluded in its own headline that the arresting officer "should probably be fired", acknowledging that the teacher was "ordered out of the meeting while actively engaged in dialogue with the board". Mr. Puyau inevitably declined to comment for the New York Times article, and while no statement has been released by him on social media, there have certainly been a few messages directed at him...
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Mr. Puyau, the forenamed superintendent, hasn't used his twitter account since November of 2015, albeit in response to his last tweet, a torrent of angry tweeters did what Ms. Hargrave was jailed for doing, and expressed their dissent in no uncertain terms...
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It should be noted that after reviewing the now-viral video, the school board has decided not to press charges on Ms. Hargrave for expressing her opinion.