Incident at Richland 2 school board meeting prompts police involvement
An incident just before a Tuesday Richland 2 school board meeting prompted police involvement.
Accounts of what happened vary, but Richland County Sheriff’s Department reports show two people attending the school board meeting were escorted from the building and banned from returning.
As a result of the altercation, two police reports were filed. In both, the names of all people involved were redacted. The first police report, filed Tuesday night, was from the perspective of a Richland County Sheriff’s Department deputy who arrived at the scene and saw security personnel talking with two members of the public who had attended the meeting.
The two members of the public were “placed on trespass notice by security and escorted from the building,” according to the report. The responding deputy took witness statements and noted the incident was not captured on security camera.
The second incident report, filed Wednesday, was from the perspective of a member of the public. The report said he was attending the school board meeting when two people near him began to argue. The person who filed the report said he intervened and tried to deescalate the situation.
After things had calmed down, one person in the crowd insulted a minor, and the person who filed the report “began to exchange words,” according to the report. After that, the person who filed the report said another person “came yelling and charging across the room at him but security was holding him back,” according to the report.
Gary Ginn, a Richland 2 parent who is often critical of the district’s administration, said he made the statement to police. He provided the report’s incident number which matched the report obtained to The State. The account he provided The State also matched the incident report’s.
According to Ginn, he had a verbal disagreement at the meeting with Superintendent Baron Davis’ wife, a Richland 2 teacher. He said the superintendent ran at him and had to be restrained by district security guards.
Richland 2 school board Chair Teresa Holmes said she only saw part of the incident, but said Davis did not run at anybody.
“Dr. Davis charged at no one,” Holmes said.
“There were two men being belligerent to the superintendent’s wife and he asked them to stop,” Holmes said.
Board member Monica Scott said Davis confronted Ginn, but did not run at him. District security, however, did pull him away from Ginn, Scott said.
Richland 2 spokeswoman Libby Roof was not present during the incident, but spoke with Davis, and the superintendent said security was not holding him back, Roof told The State.
Board members James Manning and Lindsay Agostini told The State they did not witness the incident.
The incident is another distraction from a school board that is still grappling with COVID-19. Last year, it wasn’t unheard of for school board meetings to erupt into shouting matches among board members. At one point, three school board members walked out of a meeting, forcing the meeting to be canceled, The State reported previously.
Scott called the incident “just another disturbance to get us out of our roles of why we’re supposed to be there.”
