Leesburg police are investigating an incident that Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia is characterizing as an alleged physical altercation between a school board member and a member of the public.
It happened Monday night at a community meeting at Smart’s Mill Middle School.
Charges haven’t been filed, police said, but they’re still investigating the incident. A Leesburg police spokeswoman said it happened around 7:40 p.m., and a report was filed just after 9 p.m.
Citing the ongoing investigation, police declined to detail exactly what happened.
A spokesman for the Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney declined to comment.
Meanwhile, in a statement, Loudoun County Public Schools said the school board is aware of the alleged altercation, and that the school board’s code of conduct “establishes clear expectations for conduct by Board members.”
“We affirm our commitment to protect the LCPS community and hold all members, including ourselves, accountable to the standards set forth in our policies,” the statement read.
Heather Gottlieb, who identified herself as the community member involved in the incident, said she was attending the renaming committee meeting for Frances Hazel Reid Elementary in the Smart’s Mill library.
Gottlieb is not a parent and said she’s lived in the area for 35 years and attends meetings because “education and public education is important.”
Once the meeting adjourned, Gottlieb said she walked toward the school board member, who was having a conversation with “one of the Black men on the committee” at the time.
“I just was uncomfortable with her body language and how she was walking over,” Gottlieb said.
Gottlieb started to record, “just to make sure if anything happened, that I got it on video,” she said.
Someone who Gottlieb suspected to be a school board member’s aide informed the board member she was being recorded.
WTOP isn’t naming the board member because charges haven’t been filed.
Then, according to the 46-second recording, the board member said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I was being filmed.” At that point, Gottlieb said the board member bumped her using her shoulder as she walked by.
Then, as the board member walked away to grab her purse, Gottlieb can be heard saying, “Wow.”
“I said, ‘Wow,’ because I was surprised that she actually touched me and pushed me,” Gottlieb said. “And she was like, ‘Yeah, wow.’ And I was like, ‘OK,’ and so then she picked up her purse and slammed her purse in my face.”
Gottlieb said when the board member swung the purse, “My phone hit my face. I wasn’t bleeding or have any cuts or anything like that.”
However, some of the attendees who saw the exchange urged her to report the incident, which is ultimately what prompted her to file a police report later Monday.
“An apology would be great, but that doesn’t make me confident that this couldn’t happen to somebody else,” Gottlieb said. “I fear that she doesn’t have control, right? That pretty egregious to do in a public meeting.”
WTOP has contacted the board member for comment.
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