A crowd of people who are apparently hell-bent on the pandemic lasting as close to forever as possible were filmed harassing and threatening officials in Tennessee on Tuesday night.
The Williamson County Schools Board of Education voted the same day to require masks for elementary students, staff, and others when inside or on a bus. The vote, as Anika Exum and Brinley Hineman reported for the Nashville-based paper the Tennessean, was preceded by a four-hour meeting interrupted on multiple occasions by anti-maskers. One individual, per the report, was escorted out of the meeting by local deputies.
The mandate begins Thursday and allows for elementary teachers to take off their masks if they are more than six feet away from students. For now, the temporary mandate is slated to end Sept. 21 unless a future board meeting decides otherwise.
Following the meeting, a crowd of presumed parents—though some have since questioned if the harassers’ children even attend public school—were seen aggressively getting in the face of health officials and other attendees, including some doctors and nurses.
Regional photographer and journalist Matt Masters caught much of it on video, with the crowd seen chanting “Will not comply!” and “No more masks!” At one point, an anti-masker is heard referring to the health officials and others as “child abusers,” which makes exactly zero sense given that mask mandates are designed to keep people—in this case, children—as safe as possible.
“There’s a bad place in hell and everybody’s taking notes, buddy,” another man says to someone leaving the meeting. “Keep that little smile, yeah. … We know who you are. No more masks!”
On multiple occasions, anti-maskers are heard referring to the responding law enforcement authorities as being on their side. At another point, two anti-maskers—both of them men—are seen berating someone who’s trying to leave the parking lot in their vehicle.
“We know who you are,” one is heard saying. “You can leave freely but we will find you.”
Notably, Williamson County—which includes the cities of Franklin, Brentwood, Fairview, and a portion of Spring Hill—is the wealthiest county in Tennessee. In every presidential election since 2000, Williamson has voted Republican.
Complex has reached out to the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office and the Franklin Police Department for comment.
