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Anti-mask, anti-vaccine opponents disrupt West Hartford school board meeting in latest confrontation over Connecticut’s public health mandates

Hartford Courant - 9/22/2021

West Hartford became the latest Connecticut community to have a public meeting disrupted by heated commentary from anti-mask and anti-vaccine demonstrators on Tuesday night as discord between public officials and opponents of public health mandates continues across the state.

A Hartford man was ejected from the West Hartford school board meeting after bickering with the board about wearing a mask during his remarks and making offensive comments about Superintendent Tom Moore.

Several other members of the public who attended the meeting in-person also were escorted from the building after refusing to wear face coverings, in violation of the town’s indoor mask mandate, Moore said.

The outburst, first reported by We-Ha.com, came at the start of the meeting when the board traditionally opens the floor for brief comments from the members of the public. Hartford resident Rodney Bull approached the microphone to speak against the district’s in-school mask mandate and although he was wearing a face mask, it was not covering both his mouth and nose, video of the meeting shows.

School board Chairperson Deb Polun repeatedly asked Bull to pull his mask up properly before continuing, prompting a testy back-and-forth in which an angry Bull accused a calm Polun of being controlling and abusive, the video shows.

Bull adjusted his mask and continued his remarks, but instead invoked critical race theory to argue the district is “indoctrinating children” into hating America and “their own race, if they’re white,” he said. Critical race theory, a framework developed by legal scholars in the 1970s, hinges on the notion that racism is systemic — not simply perpetuated by individuals — and is intertwined in institutions of law and governance.

Bull then accused Moore of being evil and racist and made derogatory comments about Moore’s body.

Polun and the board quickly recessed the meeting after the comments and Moore confronted Bull, who was escorted out of the meeting by another administrator. Several others also were escorted out later in the meeting after repeatedly ignoring Polun’s admonitions that they must wear masks.

“We’re all people, we’re all trying to do the right thing, we’re all trying to keep kids safe,” Moore said Wednesday afternoon. “Nothing like this is going to keep me from doing all I can to keep our kids safe. The truth is whether it’s anti-maskers or anti-vaxxers, we’re going to keep doing what we do to keep all of our children safe.”

West Hartford schools also are subject to the statewide mask mandate set by Gov. Ned Lamont, not the local school board, under the governor’s continuing emergency powers during the pandemic.

It is the latest in a string of heated confrontations and protests that have occurred across the state at public meetings and public buildings over the past several months.

The most intense confrontation came when Lamont had to be rushed out of a meeting last month in Cheshire when angry, shouting parents harangued him and other local officials to the point they had to shut down the meeting

Protests also continue across the state, especially at the state Capitol in Hartford, where a small group of parents protesting the mask mandates gathered again Wednesday morning outside the Legislative Office Building to protest as the Conservative Caucus hosted a meeting to hear testimony against vaccine and mask mandates.

In West Hartford, Moore said the school board intends to have a police officer present at its next meeting for improved security. Outside of the in-person confrontation Tuesday, though, Moore and school board members’ inboxes are constantly filled with anti-mask and anti-vaccine rhetoric that can sometimes border on threatening and that he takes those messages seriously.

“Disagreeing is one thing, but unfortunately with the poison that’s been injected into America’s bloodstream by people that want divisiveness we see these attacks,” Moore said. “They’re personal attacks and you have people that are worried when you’re leaving a meeting, who’s going to be outside waiting for them? People who are elected are wondering, ‘Is it worth it?’ ”

Zach Murdock can be reached at zmurdock@courant.com.

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