Rockland County, NY – Senator David Carlucci (D-Rockland/Westchester) is calling for the removal of Chris Kirby, an attorney for the East Ramapo School Board and an associate at the Minerva & D’Agostino law firm, after an explosive and profanity-laced incident late Tuesday night following the school board meeting that threatened to turn violent.
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LoHud.com reports (http://lohud.us/1aEgWD8) that during the public comments period of the five-hour board meeting, Peggy Hatton, an East Ramapo parent of a special-education student, was speaking about her son who failed his science Regents by one point when Mr. Kirby began to “smirk” and laugh.
Ms. Hatton called out Mr. Kirby for his behavior. He then left the room, but soon returned and continued laughing while Ms. Hatton spoke.
“You’re still smirking at me, please!” Hatton told him.
“Oh would you please shut up, for Chr.. sake,” Mr. Kirby responded.
Below video of Ms. Hatton addressing the East Ramapo board.
Another parent confronted Kirby and demanded that the board remove him from the meeting. But the school board said and did nothing.
Ms. Hatton began screaming at Mr. Kirby and the board.
The conflict then spilled over in the parking lot, where Mr. Kirby confronted Antonio Luciano, one of the East Ramapo parents, after he called him an obscene name. Parents began recording the exchange on their cell phone cameras.
Mr. Kirby responded by challenging Mr. Luciano to a fight, all the while using four-letter expletives. Ms. Hatton and other witnesses called Ramapo Police.
Mr. Kirby got into his car and continued fighting with Ms. Hatton, referring to her weight, cursing, and calling her an extremely derogatory term before finally driving off.
Patch.com writes (http://bit.ly/12HhNhq) that an outraged Senator Carlucci quickly condemned Mr. Kirby for the incident. “Last night, Chris Kirby, an attorney representing the East Ramapo School Board, launched an inexcusable tirade and verbal attack towards a group of concerned parents and advocates after a school board meeting in the parking lot,” Senator Carlucci said. “These actions were reprehensible and uncalled for in their entirety and demonstrate a lack of professional conduct that should never be tolerated.”
“I believe this warrants swift and appropriate action to ensure that this type of incident never happens again,” he added. “Today, I am calling on the school board to immediately terminate Mr. Kirby’s contract.”
But Board of Education President Yehuda Weissmandl was less emphatic. “We are deeply troubled by the events that occurred immediately following the conclusion of our school board meeting last night,” Weissmandl said in a statement. “The Board has taken the matter under advisement and will address it at a special session to occur shortly.”
Ms. Hatton and Mr. Luciano have filed a report with police and have contacted the Rockland County District Attorney and the New York State Bar Association.
Ramapo Captain Brad Weidel said officers were continuing to interview witnesses and take complaints. Weidel said a possible harassment case might be made against Mr. Kirby.
Peggy Hatton has not always been a saint and plenty of nasty expletives and vitriol have been hurled at the board members over the past year. The protesters wanted Daniel Schwartz out and they got what they wanted. Under Schwartz, the scene last night would never have happened. Th public school community in East Ramapo deserves the lousy schools they have and nothing will change until they start behaving like grownups.
Speaking of which, this dude will never be seen in Ramapo again and needs to be fired by his employer.
This woman obviously has her own issues, but the disgusting behavior of the Board’s attorney is totally unprofessional. Watching this bunch of frum yidden sitting there like dimwits without disciplining him is even worse. No wonder there is such repulsion for the frum community in Rockland county among the goyim and many secular yidden.
I’ll not defend his crazy actions, but according to the recordings do you see harassment? they called him names, they approaches him when he was prepared to drive off, is that called harassment?
I think the term someone used against him is more derogatory than the 4 letter word he used.
I disagree, he is human and everyone has a breaking point, we didn’t see what lead up to him getting this upset, I have seen these ppl and heard them. I don’t think he should be fired it was after the meeting
East Ramapo has been going down the hill for years now. Look at the majority of the school board and you will know where the problem starts. When men in charge of education have no clue about education, you only invite catastrophe. Their other agencies are run by same quality of “leaders.”
If the goyim don’t like being a minority, they have the right and ability to relocate. Do they only like majority rule when they are the majority ?
What is he, a frat boy just out of law school? How many unemployed lawyers would line up to apply for his job? I hope he just flushed his career down the drain – it’s no one’s fault but his own.
in this instance the issue is purely the unprofessional conduct of that lawyer. he should be fired. nothing more.
That East Ramapo is infected by hate, resentment, and, yes, anti-Semitism, is an understatement. Those parents regularly taunt, tease, condemn, vilify, and blame Jews for all their problems. They would test the patience of a saint or tzaddik. The lawyer blew a fuse and should not have as he is held to a higher standard, but those parents are disgusting people as the video shows. They are Jew haters, regardless of whether or not some members of the board were less than stellar characters.
The board acted very ethical by not escalating a personal silly fight. Sounds like Peggy Hatton is a known character as she herself started her speach, “I’m Peggy Hatton as you all know”.
The attorney was absolutely right. Peggy thinks she is in the Scarsdale school district.
Your not in Scarsdale. And the Jewish property tax payers are not willing to pay for both our private school education as well as a porked up school system.
Poor Peggy, did they really cut out art class? We don’t have art classes to begin with!
Stop wasting time at school board meetings and move to a location that would benefit your child Not the one school district where no one rightfully cares about the school system.
Peggy Hatton has been coming to board meetings for years. She has been riling up the crowd for years, Tony Luciano referred to the Jewish Board as Pontius Pilot http://youtu.be/z0EhnPC1Y7Q they are hardly innocent victims here. Tony has used foul language many times when referring to the Jews. I guess Mr. Kirby just snapped.
“Your not in Scarsdale. And the Jewish property tax payers are not willing to pay for both our private school education as well as a porked up school system. “
It’s porked up due to fraud which the state has proven in their documents. Expect indictments to come out this year. The former board President was sent to jail on unrelated charges, then the one who followed him abruptly resigned and who knows about this one? The former VP was arrested for voter intimidation. Need I go on?
Why should we secular Jews move out of our beautiful homes because haredim don’t want us to have a decent education? We work hard and pay high taxes. Haredim refuse to work and are non productive. A public education is our right and we will fight for it.
Yidden in America. We seem to forget we are in golus. Behave yourself. If you have to pay a little hire taxes and get less services even if tyou are right, too bad. Golus is all about yakov shmearing esav. This whole monsey thing doesn’t sit right.
One thing that 90% of people here agree upon is that Rebbe123 should be completely ignored.
I am NOT a member of this community however our community fought a big school board battle and won. We are doing well b”h but our FRUM school board does NOT ignore the needs of the non-frun nor gentile students. They work very hard to make sure that ALL the students in the district are equally educated and serviced and are getting more than they did prior to taking over the board. They have made a lot of tough economically sound decisions that were NOT liked by our non-Jewish neighbors but they have saved the community a lot of wasted money that the previous boards cared little about as they lined their own pockets with profit.
On the other hand, as I watch this video I want to point out a few things. Ms. Hatten had the floor and the right to speak. She however, did NOT have the right to deny the unruly Mr. Kirby his personal facial expressions. Whether he smirked or not was his choice and his choice alone. She should have chosen to ignore it and continue to discuss what she stood up to discuss.
As an attorney & professional, he did a very poor, negative & childish job of representing the board, and they should disassociate from him. Hire an adult for serious work.
I would love to see him try to act like that in front of a judge! Can you say contempt of court? Hope you like jail buddy!!
I witness the incident the only reason he shouldn’t of behave that way is because he is professional person
otherwise he was 100% right
Now if my attorney did such a thing, he would be out on his butt. Let us see what happens here.
Some people need a lesson in democracy. Minority rights don’t guarantee what voters if a minority block want, it only guarantees that minority voices are heard when majority rules. Don’t like the election or school board? You have the right to move but not a right to overrule the majority just because you don’t like their agenda.
The practice of law isn’t about posturing and bullying. Especially not when your job is to provide advice to a school district and nothing more. Please stop with the excuses. He is supposed to be a professional and part of the job is to listen to sit through meetings where people complain, validly and without cause. What he did was assault and he should be suspended from the practice of law and the firm, which is a nasty outfit to begin with, should be terminated.
Wow! What vile comments. I hope the people representing themselves as Orthodox and/or Charedi Jews are just trolls pretending. If they are who they purport to be, then our society needs to undergo some very intensive soul searching.