Adults fighting over masks in school parking lot need a time-out and a sippy cup
A fight broke out this week after a contentious but unanimous Pleasant Hill School Board vote that requires a mask to be worn inside all district buildings. Cass County Sheriff’s deputies had to be called to the parking lot of Pleasant Hill High School.
Three alleged adults were cited late Tuesday for resisting or interfering with an arrest, Maj. Kevin Tieman, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, said. They were ticketed and released at the scene. One man was escorted from the premises in handcuffs. Several clashes also took place outside the school auditorium, according to television station KMBC Channel 9.
“There was an altercation between a couple of people out front of the school with a lady saying that she’d been harassed or assaulted by somebody else,” Tieman said. “She said they took her cell phone away from her.”
Is this really the behavior we want to be modeling to young people?
The Star observed a video of the altercation. A woman can be heard saying in the video that she planned to record “people on the other side.”
A maskless man then confronts the woman and says: “Excuse me, did anyone give you permission to do that?” He apparently took her phone because she responded: “Give me back my phone. Hey call the cops, 911. Call the cops right now, he harassed me.”
A deputy arrived and handcuffed the man who initially confronted the woman, after others without masks verbally sparred with her, too. An investigation continued this week, law enforcement officials said, but the back-and-forth included name-calling, expletives and accusations of assault.
Participants in this melee obviously learned nothing from the anti-masker who blamed immigrants for COVID-19 and then was hospitalized after appearing maskless at a City Council meeting in Independence. Last month, Marjain Breitenbach, who owns Doughboys Donuts KC in Raytown, was hospitalized with COVID-19. His diagnosis meant others at the meeting had to be tested for the disease, too.
Masks were previously optional at Pleasant Hill. The school board wisely approved a policy that goes into effect immediately. As of Monday, the district had 28 new cases of COVID-19 since the school year began Aug. 24 and 180 people were in quarantine after exposure to the virus.
The new cases are a stark reminder: We all have a duty to slow the spread of the disease. In Pleasant Hill schools, more positive cases were reported in the first nine days of school than halfway through the 2019-2020 academic year.
And the behavior that followed the vote reminds us that we need to be fighting the pandemic instead of fighting each other.