The Ohio principal who tried to bar cops from coming into her faculty to research a bomb risk final month has a historical past of hostility in direction of the cops, The Put up has realized.
Newly launched bodycam footage reveals Ridgeview Center College Principal Natalie James and her secretary arguing with two on-duty Columbus cops responding to a scholar’s hoax bomb risk — after telling them they couldn’t enter the constructing with out the college’s safety officer current.
The incident, which occurred on March 17, is simply the most recent dust-up between James and Columbus Division of Law enforcement officials, the native police union president instructed The Put up.
Brian Metal, President of the Capital Metropolis Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #9, instructed The Put up in an interview that James has “implicit bias and disdain for law enforcement,” and a historical past of interfering with police enterprise.
“This has been going on for years with this one principal, who has an ongoing pattern of hindering law enforcement,” Metal mentioned, citing “upwards of a dozen” incidents between James and Columbus cops.
Metal says he’s been fielding calls from Ridgeview dad and mom outraged over James’ habits.
James Diorio is the guardian of a sixth grade son at Ridgeview Center College. He referred to as James’ interplay with the cops “shameful,” however wasn’t stunned at what he noticed.
“She shows no respect to anyone,” Diorio instructed The Put up. “The principal at that school is pretty much a czar — she makes her own rules, and her opinion is the only one that counts.”
Officer Keith Conner, who responded to the March 17 incident at Ridgeview, expressed the same sentiment after leaving the college that day.
“She is absolutely the most uncooperative person that I’ve ever dealt with in a school system,” Conner is heard saying on the bodycam footage.
That adopted an almost 10 minute argument with James and the secretary, during which each insisted that faculty protocol precluded the officers from coming into with out the college safety officer.
“What we’ve been told by the district is that the police can’t just go all over the building and do whatever you want to do,” James instructed the 2 officers on the scene, earlier than including that she felt threatened by them.
“I don’t have any hate toward the police, but all of of this escalated-ness and so forth and so on, I do not feel safe, I don’t feel comfortable,” she mentioned.
Officer Conner repeatedly defined that regulation enforcement has authority over faculty security and safety officers, and shouldn’t have to attend for permission to answer an emergency.
“For some reason, you don’t like the police and you want to make things so difficult for us that we don’t want to come to your school,” Conner mentioned to James within the recording.
“I don’t know what in your life happened that you hate us so much that you don’t want to cooperate.”
Finally the 2 officers left the college with out making contact with the coed chargeable for the hoax.
The incident is presently underneath investigation with the Metropolis of Columbus Division of the Inspector Common, which declined to touch upon the matter, which is underneath energetic evaluation.
Metal says he reached out to Columbus Metropolis Faculties Superintendent Angela Chapman to make clear the district’s protocol relating to cops conducting official enterprise on faculty premises, and he or she assured him she is wanting into the difficulty.
“What she did was illegal. You can’t make a policy that trumps state and local law,” Metal instructed The Put up. “That’s not how that works.”
Columbus Metropolis Faculties spokesman Mike DeFabbo instructed The Put up that Dr. Chapman and Columbus Police Chief Elaine Bryant each reviewed and mentioned the footage and could have a gathering with each of their management groups “to reinforce commitments and expectations.”
“I made it clear to the chief of police that any action to discipline [Conner] will not be tolerated,” Metal mentioned. “Our officer did nothing wrong.”
The Columbus Division of Police declined The Put up’s request to interview the officers concerned.
Franklin County court docket information present James was arrested in 2022 for home violence and assault. The fees have been later dismissed.
James didn’t return The Put up’s request for remark.
