Guard Forcibly Throws Father Out Of School Board Meeting For Refusing To Wear Mask

A maskless father was caught on a video being forcibly removed from his chair and getting dragged out of a school board meeting.

The incident happened Tuesday. Dave Calus from upstate New York was seated at the meeting in Webster and watching a presentation when a security guard approached him. When the guard asked him to put on a mask, Calus said “thank you” but did not put the mask on, according to New York Post. The parent had accepted a mask at the door before taking a seat at the meeting.

“No, you need to put your mask on right now,” the guard insisted but Calus continued to ignore his instruction. The guard then pushed the parent off his chair and dragged him out of the room. A video of the confrontation was posted on the ROC for Educational Freedom Public Page on Facebook.

Calus spoke to Spectrum 1 News and said he was planning to speak against school mask mandates at the meeting. “Should I have worn a mask? Maybe, but if I'm there advocating on behalf of my child, you know, to go to school mask free while I'm wearing a mask, that's really not going to carry a lot of weight, right?”

The parent, whose son is a high school student in the district, said he wants to see changes in the mask mandate. “I'm disappointed, you know, and I know that I know that parents have not been able to make changes," Calus told the outlet. “We haven't had a voice in a very, very long time. So I'm hoping you know that that changes quickly."

The Webster Central School District released a statement Wednesday about the “unfortunate incident” and said visitors were reminded to wear masks as per the state’s mask mandate in school buildings.

“The individual whom you inquired about was asked to put his mask on three times and he refused. He was then asked to leave the meeting and refused to do so, resulting in Webster CSD security physically removing the individual from the meeting,” said the statement, according to WHEC.

“We strive to hold board of education meetings in public in order to inform the community of activities going on in our schools. Those meetings can only occur when everyone in attendance acts in a civil manner. We understand that individuals have strong feelings about masking. We hear those concerns and are continuing to monitor the rapid changes in this ongoing pandemic…,” it said.

The Webster Police Department also released a statement on Twitter addressing the incident.