SandyMaloneRocky Point, NY – A parent pulled out a knife to make a point about response time during a school attack at a Parent Teacher Association (PTA) meeting on Wednesday (video below).
The emergency PTA meeting was called to discuss safety issues after some students participated in the National School Walkout calling for gun control, despite the fact that Rocky Point High School’s administration had taken a stance against it, the International Business Times reported.
The students who defied the rules and walked out of class were suspended, according to reports.
A student in attendance at the meeting posted a video to Twitter of an confrontation between a student and a parent that occurred during the meeting.
Seventeen-year-old Jade Pinkenburg had just told the PTA he didn’t think the school should have armed guards, and the parent disagreed.
When the video began, it showed the parent and Pinkenburg arguing at the front of the classroom.
“I’m considerably larger than you, okay. If something happened, if I decided to attack you, it would take the cops three to five minutes to come here. Probably 10 if the traffic’s bad,” the parent said.
Suddenly, the parent pulled a closed pocketknife out of his pocket and held it in the air above the student’s head.
“What are you going to do now? What are you going to do now?” the parent taunted him, making the point that police cannot respond to immediate threatening situations.
“Stop it!” a man can be heard yelling from the audience.
Pinkenburg turned and headed back to his seat, not appearing to be scared, while some members of the audience began heckling the parent.
“That’s illegal,” a teenage boy yelled.
“Unfortunately, it’s reality though,” a mom in the audience told him.
“No, you can’t pull a switchblade out on a kid in school. That’s insane!” he ranted, as the video ended.
The knife in the video was not a switchblade. And the parent in the video did not appear to have opened the knife during the discussion at the PTA meeting, despite some social media reports to the contrary.
School Superintendent Michael Ring conceded that the man was trying to make a point, but said in a statement that it “was ill conceived and inappropriate for the venue,” according to Newsweek.
“District personnel stopped the demonstration and members of our school security team removed the individual from the meeting. The district has contacted our dedicated Suffolk County Police Department School Resource Officer to report the incident,” Ring wrote. “Please know that the safety and security of our students, staff and residents attending our meetings and other school functions is always of paramount concern.”
Jo Herman, tweeted out the video along with her thoughts about the absurdity of the situation.
“I protested peacefully this morning and got suspended. A man threatened a kid with a knife at a PTA meeting and got gently escorted from the school. Show me the logic,” Herman wrote.
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But many of the people who responded to her video tweet understood what the parent had been trying to do at the meeting.
“He was talking about how if he was trying to hurt the girl it would take a long time before the police got there to help he was not actually threatening her. He was trying to make a point. Actually listen to the video instead of reading the caption,” Austin Smith replied.
“Give me a break. He didn’t threaten that kid, he was trying to make a point. If that kid was really feeling threatened would he have been giggling as he trotted away? Overreact much?” Dan Maddox posted.
“He never threatened that kid. The knife was simply a prop to drive home his point. Not a great idea I grant that, but he definitely didn’t threaten him. Complete overreaction. Anyone who thinks he “pulled a knife” on this kid has never really had a knife pulled on them. Lol,” Maddox wrote.
You can see the video of the confrontation below: