23 August 2021
As children head back to the classroom, a "vocal minority" have resorted to violence or disruptive measures to protest against mask mandates in schools.
Driving the news: While the majority of Americans support the mandates, according to a recent Axios/Ipsos poll, back-to-school confrontations across the U.S. have gotten so hot that teachers and other officials have been punched, hit and screamed at.
What's happening:
In Texas, Tom Leonard, the superintendent of Eanes Independent School District, wrote in a note to parents and staff last week that the return to school has been marked by "a few sad moments."
- One parent in the Austin-area district allegedly assaulted a teacher by ripping off her face mask, while others yelled at another teacher, claiming they couldn't understand what she was saying due to the face covering.
- "This is everywhere," Leonard told NPR, saying that he'd spoken to education leaders in California, Illinois and New York who've experienced similar issues.
In Northern California, a parent allegedly left a teacher bleeding and requiring hospital treatment — after the parent tried to attack the principal over masks and the teacher jumped in, KCRA-TV reported.
- “The teachers have definitely been on edge. They are fearful because the last thing they want is to have an issue with a parent,” Torie Gibson, superintendent of California's Amador County Unified School District, told AP.
In Kansas last week, officials in Douglas County were confronted by angry unmasked protesters who opposed an indoor mask mandate for two- to- 12-year-olds, invoking comparisons to the Taliban and leaders of Japanese internment camps, according to AP.
Even before students headed back to the classroom, school board meetings across the U.S. saw heated confrontations over whether masks should be required for students and teachers.
- In Nevada and Pennsylvania, meetings this month devolved into verbal arguments so aggressive that police were called in.
- At least 11 protesters who disrupted a Utah school board meeting in July are facing criminal charges, AP reported.
The big picture: Public health measures like mask and vaccine mandates have become a political flashpoint across the country even as COVID-19 cases surge nationwide due to the Delta variant.
- Schools districts in Florida and Texas are defying executive orders by their state governors banning such mandates. Schools in Arizona and South Carolina are fighting similar bans.
- Some colleges and universities, meanwhile, are instituting disciplinary actions against unvaccinated students.
Go deeper: America's patchwork back-to-school plan
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.