Deyshia Hargrave Video: Teacher Arrested After Asking Why Superintendent Would Get $38,000 Raise
The video titled “Vermilion parish teacher gets arrested at Vermilion parish school meeting” has received nearly 500,000 views since being uploaded to YouTube on Monday, January 8. As reported by the New York Times, Deyshia stood up at a school board meeting in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, asking why the superintendent would receive a $38,000 raise when teachers had not received a raise in years.
As seen in the video, which is longer than 12 minutes, several rounds of back-and-forth questioning feature Deyshia getting support from others at the meeting as Hargrave’s question doesn’t appear to be answered directly. After several minutes, a male security officer appears in front of the teacher, asking her to leave. She says “excuse me” more than once, asking why she could not continue to speak.
Marshal’s office personnel continued to tell her to leave the room, with Deyshia agreeing to leave. However, once news spread through the room that the Louisiana teacher was being placed in handcuffs in the hallway of the school board meeting, the person recording the video footage makes his or her way into the hallway, just in time to see the marshal handcuffing Hargrave, who was on the floor at the time.
Curiosities: A Teacher Was Handcuffed After Questioning The Superintendent’s Pay Raise At A School Board Meeting – Video showed Deyshia Hargrave being handcuffed and escorted out of a meeting where she said the superintendent's pay raise was a "slap i… https://t.co/BI9TZmmgFM
— Aneudy Patiño M. (@aneudypatino) January 9, 2018
Deyshia complains in the video that the officer pushed her to the ground. Meanwhile, he tells her to stop resisting arrest. Hargrave is an English teacher who is gaining plenty of support across the world as news of her arrest goes viral, well beyond the Rene A. Rost Middle School in Vermilion Parish where she teaches.
The superintendent, Jerome Puyau, is also receiving plenty of backlash and commentary in the wake of the teacher’s arrest for allegedly staying where forbidden and the resisting of the officer. The teacher was booked into Abbeville city jail and released. According to David Begnaud, a CBS News correspondent, Deyshia was deemed “out of order” for speaking out about the $38,000 raise.
Update: The Louisiana teacher who was ruled “out of order” while speaking out against a pay raise for her superintendent, was booked in to jail on charges of: remaining while forbidden, and resisting an officer, according to @KATCTV3. They report that she has bonded out of jail.
— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) January 9, 2018
Hargrave asked the school board if it was against the law to stand in the meeting and ask a question. Hargrave noted that the officer was taller than her and that he didn’t need to call for backup.
Deyshia was praised as a great teacher who was outspoken as she stood up for the rights of teachers who hadn’t received a pay raise in 10 years, even as the size of their classes grew.
