For around 15 minutes, a Lowndes County Sheriff”s Deputy basically was on his own.
Other than help from Caledonia High School Assistant Principal Andy Stevens, Lowndes County Chief Deputy Greg Wright said Deputy Scott Glasgow did not receive any assistance from bystanders during a physical altercation with two students on Aug. 15 at the school.
“There”s things that raised concerns with us that we”d like to address,” Wright said. “I wasn”t pleased with the assistance the deputy received.”
According to Wright, it began as a verbal altercation regarding dress code violations between the students and Stevens. However, the incident escalated when Glasgow intervened and the students became louder and belligerent. When Glasgow tried to take the students into custody, they resisted arrest and engaged Glasgow in a physical altercation, Wright said.
Stevens assisted the deputy and was able to pull one of the students away from Glasgow, Wright said. Glasgow then spent the next 15-20 minutes struggling with the other student until Caledonia Town Marshal Ben Kilgore arrived to offer support. Glasgow suffered a broken hand from the incident, Wright said.
According to Wright, a video clearly shows people standing around and watching as the deputy struggles with the students.
“I had a deputy on the floor holding this person down and faculty came up and watched and didn”t lend any assistance,” Wright said.
Lowndes County Sheriff Butch Howard sent a letter requesting a meeting with Lowndes County Superintendent Mike Halford and Caledonia High School Principal Randy Barnett to discuss the incident.
“He said he was concerned about some issues,” Halford said.
“I”m not going to tell you that our people couldn”t have handled it better. We should have been of more assistance to the law enforcement officer. We weren”t, and we should have been.”
The Lowndes County School District pays the Lowndes County Sheriff”s Office $150,000 a year to have a school resource officer at the New Hope, Caledonia and West Lowndes campuses. The school district started having school resource officers at the high schools three years ago.
According to Halford, an incident to this magnitude is uncommon in Lowndes County schools. “This is the first incident that we”ve had in the sense where we say, ”Hey, we have to talk about this,”” he said.
“The SRO officers is one of the best things we”ve ever done. I praise them for all their help.”
The students were arrested and charged with resisting arrest and assault on a police officer, Wright said, but no names were released due to the students being juveniles.
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