Parents are demanding action from police against a man who has allegedly been harassing their children over their school's mask rules.
On Monday night, parents gathered outside the Sheriff's Office in La Crescenta, California, over the issue, CBS Los Angeles reported. The man, who has been captured on video wearing a shirt reading "Your Mask Makes You Look Stupid," allegedly harasses students as they walk from school.
In one particular video, the man was seen slinging anti-mask rhetoric at a group of students in a parking lot near Rosemont Middle School in La Crescenta. His tirade also included multiple vulgar phrases. He has claimed to have children in the local school system and refers to mask mandates as child abuse.
Parents in La Crescenta gathered outside the Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station Monday night, demanding deputies investigate a man reportedly harassing children as they walked home from school. For more information, click the link.https://t.co/HYyNTb2Fan pic.twitter.com/3l1GsaTrt1
— CBS Los Angeles (@CBSLA) January 25, 2022
"Clearly there is a problem here, not just a mental health problem but an anger management issue where he feels compelled to attack people who are more vulnerable than him," local parent Emily Lanigan told CBS Los Angeles.
One parent, who identified himself only as Ned to CBS Los Angeles, said that he confronted the man during one of his tirades.
"They were obviously getting scared," Ned explained. "He was getting three to five inches away and coughing in their faces."
Ned attempted to report the man to police after this incident but said that once a deputy arrived, he said that it was not clear that a crime had been committed and then turned his attention to the students.
"He decided to lecture the kids about freedom of speech instead of taking their names and writing an incident report," Lanigan explained.
Los Angeles Sheriff's Department Lieutenant Robert Hahnlein told CBS Los Angeles that the department is aware of the issue with the man and is currently working to investigate the matter.
"I have sympathy for the parents," Hahnlein told CBS Los Angeles. "If my kids were there when this happened, I would be upset too and I would want something done."
Newsweek reached out to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for a comment on this story.
In December, the Los Angeles County School District delayed its ambitious plan to mandate vaccinations for students 12 and older. Following a school board vote on December 14, the deadline for vaccination was pushed back from January 10 to some point later in fall 2022. Had the deadline remained in place, a sizeable amount of students would have been required to return to virtual classes.
Correction 01/25/2022, 4:46 p.m. ET: This article has been corrected to reflect that the Glendale Police Department is not assisting Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in the investigation.
