Police report says one Richland 2 school board member threatened to ‘beat’ another
The chairwoman of the Richland 2 school board filed a police report claiming that another board member threatened to beat one of her colleagues during a heated exchange at a board meeting last week, according to the report.
Chairwoman Teresa Holmes filed the report with the Richland County Sheriff’s Department after a special called meeting April 28, during which another board member reportedly cursed another member and threatened to “beat her Mo....Fu.....A..,” according to the report.
The report provided to The State redacts the names of the participants in the event, and The State has not been able to confirm the board member identified in the complaint. But the report indicates the altercation occurred during the board meeting at the Richland 2 Institute of Innovation in the Sandhill area, and identifies the complainant as the board chair.
According to the report, the board member announced during the meeting that she was “sick” of another board member, according to the report.
The member then “threatened to meet her outside and beat her” while using profane language, the report says. The board member was standing near the victim, who stood up to confront her. “Suspect continued to make verbal intimidation while walking toward the victim,” until another unnamed person “shouted out to the suspect to stop her behavior.”
The board meeting on April 28 was live-streamed online by the school district, but the majority of the meeting took place in a closed door executive session to discuss school security issues, which was not filmed. The only publicly viewable portions of the video are the board voting to enter executive session and then voting to adjourn the meeting about an hour and a half later.
The report indicates that another board member filmed the exchange during the executive session.
Holmes, the school board chair, declined to comment about the report when contacted by The State. Two other board members told The State that they disagreed with Holmes’ decision to involve law enforcement.
“What transpired did not warrant a police report,” said Lindsay Agostini. “It was inappropriate and unprofessional of the chair to get the sheriff’s department involved.”
Monica Scott declined to discuss the specifics of the incident, but said that “nothing inappropriate or unethical happened in that meeting.”
She said board member Lashonda McFadden was the subject of the police report. McFadden did not immediately respond Thursday afternoon when asked whether she was involved. Earlier, when asked about the incident, she told The State via text that “my lawyer is looking into this.”
Scott was also upset at the report a board member had filmed the exchange, saying it would violate the confidentiality of the closed-door meeting and the school district’s policy on executive sessions. She said she had not seen the purported video.
Board vice chair James Manning declined to comment on the incident. Cheryl Caution-Parker and Amelia McKie could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday afternoon.
Richland 2 in northeastern Richland County has had contentious board meetings in the past. Previous school board meetings have erupted into shouting matches among board members. Last fall, three school board members walked out of a meeting, forcing the meeting to be canceled, The State reported previously.
In January, police got involved when Superintendent Barron Davis confronted a man attending a board meeting who got into a verbal disagreement with Davis’ wife, a Richland 2 teacher. A Richland County Sheriff’s Department incident report said two members of the public were placed on trespass notice by security and escorted from the building.
This story was originally published May 5, 2022 at 3:22 PM.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that during a January meeting of the Richland 2 school board, two members of the public were placed on trespass notice by security and escorted from the building. An earlier version of the story gave a different scenario for how they left the meeting.
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