WATCH: Anti-LGBT Florida School Board Candidate Arrested for Refusing to Leave Meeting

‘I’m Not Going Anywhere, This Is America!’

A school board candidate in Florida was arrested Tuesday night after refusing to leave a meeting where LGBT protections were being discussed. 

Dean Paterakis, who’s running for Brevard County School Board, opposes the district’s proposal to ban anti-LGBT discrimination, based on a recent video and comments he shared on his Facebook page: 

On Tuesday, the board heard public comments on the issue before voting to schedule a public hearing on the proposal, according to a report from FloridaToday.com, which also posted raw video of the incident (above). 

During his comments, Paterakis alleged that a teacher in the district had shown a photo of his “erect penis” to students. School board chair Andy Ziegler cut Paterakis off, saying his comments were inappropriate, but Paterakis refused to leave the podium. 

A school district security officer and two sheriff’s deputies intervened, but Paterakis pushed them away, saying he had a right to “free speech,” as some audience members chanting, “Let him speak.” 

Paterakis eventually sat down on the floor and had to be carried out of the room by sheriff’s deputies. After being arrested and charged with disrupting a school function and resisting an officer, both misdemeanors, Paterakis was released from jail hours later on $750 bond.  

“I have seen the sheriff report against me as they were booking me and it said that because I was told not to use the word penis that I was asked to leave and I was also charged with resisting arrest which is such a joke,” Paterakis wrote later on Facebook, where he accused the sheriff’s department and the school district of protecting pedophiles.

“I thought I have seen it all, but this absolutely is one the most ridiculous things I have seen the school board and sheriff’s department pull. How out of touch with education are these elected school board members are that they don’t understand that the schools teach education in elementary and the word penis is a medical and an appropriate term to refer a man’s genitalia? These charges are obvious attempts to keep me silent about [what] goes on in our schools.” 

Paterakis has recently made several posts opposing the Obama administration’s directive requiring public schools to allow trans students to use restrooms based on their gender identity. On May 15, he shared a video in which the Benham Brothers compared the directive to the Joker’s call for “chaos” in “The Dark Knight.”

 

Image: Screenshot via FloridaToday.com