The father of an Arizona elementary school student was arrested after he and two other men showed up to the campus with zip-tie handcuffs, threatening a “citizen’s arrest” of the school principal over a Covid-19 quarantine, officials said on Friday.
Diane Vargo, principal of Mesquite elementary school in Tucson, said the parent came to her office on Thursday with his son in tow. The father was upset the child would have to isolate and miss a school field trip because of possible exposure to Covid-19.
She said two other men also “barged in”. One, she said, was carrying “military, large, black zip ties and standing in my doorway”. Vargo said she tried to explain the school had to follow county health protocols.
“I felt violated that they were in my office claiming I was breaking the law and they were going to arrest me,” a shaken Vargo said in a video statement released by the Vail Unified School District. “Two of the men weren’t parents at our school, so I felt threatened.”
In video on social media, Vargo can be heard calmly asking the men to leave. One replies they aren’t leaving because they are not going to let her control the situation. The principal called police.
School officials said the man arrested was the father. Vargo said the school district was pursuing charges against the other two men.
The arrest is the latest in a number of confrontations in schools around the US over virus-related rules. District officials commended Vargo’s handling of the situation.
“The principal through training and her own personality did an excellent job of making sure that tensions didn’t escalate,” superintendent John Carruth said.
Carruth said the decision to call police was appropriate. Most people, while frustrated by the pandemic, are still supportive of each other and the school system, he said.
“The tactics are escalating but I wouldn’t say there is a broader need to raise concern. The solution and the lesson and the silver lining in this [incident] is it calls attention to the need for all of us to seek to listen with the intent to understand.”
Dr Francisco Garcia, the Pima county chief medical officer, said: “We are still in the process of contemplating what our next steps are in terms of our individual response to that family in terms of their adherence to staying at home.”
It was not the first virus-inspired confrontation involving the Tucson-area school district, 130 miles south of Phoenix.
In April, the district board ended a study session then canceled a meeting after dozens of parents protested the district’s refusal to lift its mask mandate. Sheriff’s deputies were summoned to keep order after parents, many not wearing masks, pushed into the boardroom.