JERSEY CITY, NJ — A police complaint in the arrest of a mother at a Jersey City school board meeting last week says she was removed at the direction of a board official.
Parents and local officials have been critical of the board since parent Emily Pecot was handcuffed at a meeting on May 21. (See what she had to say about that here.)
Pecot, the mother of a student on the autism spectrum, had spoken about services for special needs students as a member of the group Parents United for Special Education Reform.
In the week since the arrest, parents and local officials have strongly criticized the board. They said the board has been slicing the amount of time parents are allowed to speak at meetings, down to one minute in some cases.
A police report obtained by Patch sheds further light on the incident last week:
The report says that the security director at the meeting, Rudy Snelling, and Board Vice President De'Jon Morris asked that Pecot be removed from the meeting, with Snelling claiming that she was "hostile and verbally aggressive."
Pecot has denied this.
The report also quotes Snelling as saying that "they removed the superintendent from the board meeting due to concerns for their safety."
The report says that when police asked Pecot to leave, she said, "Why? I've done nothing wrong. I'm just sitting there."
They placed her in handcuffs "to escort her out and issue her a short form arrest summons for defiant trespassing," the complaint says.
The complaint says that because Pecot's "colleagues" surrounded and filmed police, they took her to Central Booking to de-escalate the situation.
On Thursday of this week, parents attended a special board meeting to ask the board to drop the charges and consider a host of changes, including giving parents more than a minute to speak at meetings.
Jersey Councilwoman Eleana Little had posted on social media last week that she had reached out to Board President Noemi Vazquez to discuss the matter, but was rebuffed. Vazquez declined to respond to questions from Patch.
On Wednesday, two more Jersey City council members weighed in on the arrest.
Ward B Councilman Joel Brooks and Ward D Councilman Jake Ephros released a statement saying, "Our job as city councilmembers is not only to legislate and deal with issues pertaining to municipal government. It is also to show up as leaders in the community, and every leader in Jersey City should clearly call out the chaos surrounding the BOE.
"It is unacceptable that a member of Jersey City’s special education parent community was forcibly removed from last week’s meeting. This arrest comes on the heels of a long fight for transparency and accountability in the JC Public Schools special education curriculum and programming."
At Thursday's special board meeting, parents were given three minutes to speak. Some asked for Morris to resign. Others asked for improvements to special education programs. Another meeting will be held in the near future.
More Details
See what superintendent of schools Norma Fernandez said here.
Read previous reporting on Jersey City Patch: Mom Addresses Her Arrest At Jersey City School Board Meeting
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