The police-state mentality that has beset school board meetings where parents are arrested and vilified for voicing valid concerns about their children’s education isn’t limited to the disturbing, high-profile incidents in Loudoun County, Virginia.
The unsettling trend has developed nationwide, as evidenced by Attorney General Merrick Garland’s weaponizing the DOJ to target school parents as so-called domestic terrorists. In response to that edict, it appears some school districts are taking Merrick’s directive to heart without waiting for federal intervention.
The latest example comes from the Round Rock Independent School District in Texas, where two parents were escorted from school board meetings and arrested for voicing opposition to school policy and expressing concern about alleged corruption within the highest ranks of the school district.
During an August meeting, Jeremy Story, a minister and father of seven kids, was trying to present credible evidence showing the school district’s superintendent, Hafedh Azaiez, had assaulted his mistress and how the school board had knowledge of the crime and was abetting a cover-up, reported KTVN News2.
The superintendent and board president cut Story off mid-sentence and had him pulled off the stand by police officers. In response to questions from outraged citizens, the superintendent said that, “Round Rock ISD Police will maintain order,” when the need arises.
It didn’t take long.
The following month, Dustin Clark, a parent and retired U.S. Army captain, was criticizing the board for violating open meetings law by discussing and voting on a tax increase while locking parents out of the room using district police.
The school board skirted the law by artificially limiting in-person public attendance by leaving only 18 seats in a room with a nearly 400-seat capacity. The school board president had community members removed from meetings if the brought their own chairs, and also threatened to separate parents from their children.
Clark had asked the board to open the nearly empty room to the public. Instead, the school board president directed officers to remove Clark from school property, reported City Journal.
As he was dragged out by two officers, Clark shouted to the audience: “It’s an open meeting! Shame on you. Communist! Communist! Let the public in!”
Later the same week, the school district joined forces with local law enforcement, sent police officers to the homes of both men, arrested them in their own homes, and threw them in jail on charges of “disorderly conduct with intent to disrupt a meeting.”
After being held in jail overnight, the two men were released after their families and supporters held an all-night protest. They are currently trying to raise money for their legal defense.
“We are simply trying to exercise our free speech rights,” Story said. “They have resorted to gestapo style tactics virtually unseen before in Texas school board history.”
But the actions of one school board in Texas, Story said, aren’t isolated to the Lone Star state.
“It is about everyone,” he said. “If they can come for us and get away with it, school boards nationwide will be emboldened to come for you. Peacefully speaking isn’t a crime in America.”
