In Wyoming, a high school student was allegedly arrested for trespassing on school grounds after being suspended for not wearing a mask.
A junior at Laramie High School, Gracie Smith was previously suspended, failing to comply with her school’s mask mandate, which was put in place by the Albany County District last month. On Thursday, the student was arrested after she came on to school premises without permission.
Video footage of her being removed from the premises of the school shows her being escorted by two officers. Smith discussed the incident in a video interview that was posted on Facebook. She was accompanied by Republican state Senator Anthony Bouchard and her father.
“It makes me feel angry, and it makes me feel so sad that I had to be the one to fight this,” said Smith. In the video, her father – Andy Smith – claimed that the school was going against his role as a parent by suspending her.
“When asked if they’re arresting her for [not wearing] her mask, they’ll say, ‘No, we’re arresting her for her violation of failure to comply in accordance with their trespassing ordinance,'” he told Bouchard in the video.
On top of being suspended for two days already, the school has added another two days to her suspension period for trespassing. In addition, she’s been fined thousands of dollars, Yahoo! News reports. “I would never choose to do anything wrong and I never saw myself sitting in the back of a cop car, handcuffed,” Smith added.
Smith says her actions have lost her friends and the respect from some of the school’s faculty.