Police arrested at least one person when eight locks at a Milwaukee choice school were superglued shut before a visit by Gov. Scott Walker (R) to read to children. Before and during the visit, at least 100 protestors surrounded and shouted at students and parents arriving at the successful, voucher-accepting Messmer Preparatory Catholic School.
Police arrested one person for battery during the protest, and pursued leads on the vandal, whom school security cameras showed arriving at the school late the night before.
One protester said, “‘Get ready for a riot,’ because they were going to disrupt the visit,” said Br. Bob Smith, Messmer Catholic Schools president.
Demonstrators shouted and cursed to protest the governor’s promotion of school choice and recent laws limiting public employee collective bargaining to wages and benefits and requiring employees to contribute slightly less than the average worker to their health and pension benefits.
“People ought to start acting like adults,” Smith said. “You’ve got little kids who have no clue what you’re even talking about, and you make something political when it isn’t; that’s just flat-out wrong.”
—Staff Reports
Internet Info:
“Obnoxious Protest at Successful Choice School,” MacIver Institute: http://www.viddler.com/explore/heartland/videos/465/
Video courtesy of the MacIver Institute. Image by The National Guard.
Joy Pullmann is a research fellow on education policy for The Heartland Institute and managing editor of The Federalist, a web magazine on politics, policy, and culture.
