Teacher Questions Superintendent’s Massive Raise, So She’s Assaulted and Arrested

Free Thought Project – by Matt Agorist

Vermillion Parish, LA — Illustrating the brutal nature of servitude police have to their rulers, an innocent English teacher was assaulted and arrested this week for merely asking why the superintendent was getting a raise when the rest of the school system is suffering. The entire infuriating interaction was captured on video and serves to make a powerful statement about who police protect.

Deyshia Hargrave, an English language arts teacher at Rene Rost Middle Schools, was addressing the Vermillion Parish school board meeting Monday night when the incident began. Hargrave—along with dozens of other teachers and staff—had filled the meeting Monday night to discuss the issue of teacher salaries and pay raises. 

During the meeting, the panel gave the opportunity for anyone in the audience to voice their concerns over the vote to give the unelected superintendent a new 3-year contract with a $38,000 a year raise. Naturally, everyone in the audience wanted to speak out against this “slap in the face” because teachers in Vermillion Parish barely make $38,000 a year.

During the time for public comment, Hargrave was called upon to speak, stood up, and very eloquently and calmly voiced her concern that classroom sizes have greatly increased over the last few years as teachers’ salaries remained stagnant. Hargrave explained that they need more resources at the teaching level and watching an unelected new superintendent get a massive raise because of who he knows was disappointing.

The board headed up by president Anthony Fontana—a local defense attorney often referred to as a “tyrant”—couldn’t have cared less about Hargrave’s concerns. Still, Hargrave sat peacefully as the board voted themselves a massive raise in front of all the suffering teachers.

After the vote, Hargrave was given the floor again and was being addressed by superintendent Jerome Puyau—who was likely giddy over his new $38,000 raise—when, for no reason, a city marshal’s deputy approached Hargrave to remove her from the room.

Puyau was actually talking to Hargrave when this cop demanded she exit the building for absolutely no reason.

“I hope someone is getting this on film,” an audience member can be heard saying.

Despite having every legal reason to stay, Hargrave complied with the officer and left the meeting even though Puyau was still talking to her.

Naturally, the audience thought this to be a major injustice and began voicing their concerns. Then, however, all of the sudden, someone says “he’s putting her in handcuffs right now!”

As the camera turns, we can see the cop on top of Hargrave, who is much smaller than him, as he places her under arrest for no reason.

“I didn’t do anything wrong and you pushed me to the floor,” Hargrave says as the marshal manhandles her down the hallway. “Sir, I am much smaller than you.”

As the cop leads Hargrave to the patrol vehicle to take her to the station, bystanders speak out in protest.

“I know you’re not going to arrest her for that. It’s our children she was speaking up for.”

Still, the officer proceeded to arrest the young teacher for no reason. As he waits for a backup officer to arrive, the marshal looks like a fool and a tyrant as he stands there, detaining this harmless and innocent woman.

Below is a video of what standing up for children and calling out corruption looks like in the land of the free.

To see the full interaction, watch the video below.

Free Thought Project