The sheriff of Loudoun County denied the county school superintendent’s request for a standby SWAT team, riot control unit, and undercover officers at an August school board meeting.
The county has become a hotbed of controversy in recent months, with dozens of parents protesting at school board meetings over critical race theory and revelations the superintendent and board members allowed a male student charged with sexual assault to move to a different school where he committed a second assault.
Loudoun County Sheriff Michael Chapman said in emails reported by Fox News that it was “extraordinary” that Superintendent Scott Ziegler would request a K-9 unit explosive device sweep, an on-site task force, undercover officers in the public crowd, and the sheriff office’s civil defense unit and special operations team after hiring a private security company.
LOUDOUN SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER SEEKS SUPERINTENDENT’S RESIGNATION OVER TRANSGENDER POLICY
The civil defense unit is the sheriff’s office riot control unit, and the special operations team is the office’s equivalent of a SWAT team.
Chapman noted the request was fairly substantial and would require at least “65 sworn deputies” and that Ziegler had failed to “provide any justification for such a manpower intensive request.” The sheriff also criticized Ziegler for telling the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office how to do their jobs.
The district had already hired armed and unarmed security at the time of Ziegler’s request, according to Chapman’s email response, and subjected anyone who entered the building to being searched.
Ziegler expressed surprise that Chapman had rebuffed his request, defending it as being similar to the resources expended by the sheriff’s office at the school board’s June 22 meeting. The June meeting had garnered national media attention after the father of a girl who was sexually assaulted in the bathroom of a Loudoun County high school was arrested after an altercation in which he claims a woman questioned the validity of his daughter’s story.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The father, Scott Smith, can be seen on video struggling with sheriff’s deputies. He was found guilty of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
