Missouri Cop Threatens to Report School Bus Driver Over Face Masks

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

In November a circuit judge in Cole County, Missouri, issued a decision that struck down a regulation of the state's Department of Health and Senior Services which allowed state and local health authorities to issue orders aimed at slowing the spread COVID and protecting the public health.  The judge ordered the department to refrain from issuing verbal or written orders designed to mitigate the spread of COVID.  

Normally a judicial order that outrageous would have been immediately appealed, but the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services has as its official lawyer the attorney general of Missouri, and the state's current attorney general, a Republican by the name of Eric Schmitt, is running for the US Senate and saw the judge's ruling as being beneficial to his campaign.  Schmitt therefore chose not to appeal the ruling and instead announced that it also covered Missouri schools. 

Attorney General Schmitt then stretched that misinterpretation of the ruling even further and said that the court's ruling meant that school districts could not require face mask mandates, and he appealed to Missourians to report - to his office - any districts that went against the Cole County ruling and continued to require face masks, and he asked that the concerned citizens also send also photographs and videos of masked students and teachers - things that might even find their way into political commercials.

Attorney General Schmitt is now threatening to sue schools and local health authorities if they enforce COVID health mandates.

This past week Missouri's GOP state treasurer, Scott Fitzpatrick, went on record asking the state's school districts to comply with COVID mandate "rules" established by the state's attorney general.  Fitzpatrick also said that his office would no longer help schools finance bond debt unless they promised not to institute face mask mandates.

So, with all of that craziness that is coming from Missouri's state government regarding face mask mandates in the public schools, perhaps it is somewhat understandable that frontline police officers in the state don't have a clue as to what is actually "legal" and "illegal" with regard to school district mask mandates.

Last Friday an armed policeman approached a school bus driver for the Rockwood School District in Jefferson County, Missouri - near St. Louis.  The policeman, an officer in the Arnold, Missouri, police department, was outside of his jurisdiction, but he felt compelled to intervene with the driver because he had children who attended school in that district.  The policeman told the bus driver that he was going to report her because she was "going against the law" by requiring the students on her bus to wear masks.   He elaborated, "There's an executive order by Eric Schmitt saying you cannot wear a mask."

The driver, to her credit, remained calm and radioed her supervisor regarding the incident.  The school district is reiterating that students in the district must wear masks while on the district buses.

Legal experts are pointing out that the attorney general for the state of Missouri has no power to issue executive orders - and federal regulations also require masks on buses.

Confusion reigns - and Eric Schmitt's senate campaign rolls on!