School Suspends Assistant Principal Caught Screaming At Pro-Life Protesters
An assistant principal at a high school in Pennsylvania was suspended after a video showing him screaming at teens protesting abortion was posted on YouTube.
In a statement posted on its Facebook page, the Downington Area School District said Zach Ruff, the Dean of Academics and Student Life of Downingtown STEM Academy in Chester County, was put on leave following the incident.
"We have begun a thorough investigation into this unfortunate situation and have placed the staff member on administrative leave," the statement said. "We do not condone or support the conduct expressed in the video and are deeply disappointed that this incident occurred."
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The school district also issued an apology for Ruff's handling of the matter.
According to The Daily Mail, Ruff was directing the traffic away from the academy when the incident happened.
The video shows two teenagers, 19-year-old Lauren Haines and her sister, 16-year-old Conner, standing on the sidewalk fronting the school holding pro-life signages.
The assistant principal approached and asked them to leave or else he would call the police. But the two teens refused and challenged him to do what he said. Ruff then tried to block the signs they were holding to prevent the students from seeing the image of an aborted baby.
Conner spoke to Ruff and told him, "Sir, these are the image bearers of God," to which the dean replied, "You can go to hell, where they are too."
He also said that, "They're not children, they're cells! You're at a science-based school, those are cells," when told by the teens that "innocent children" were being killed.
One of the teens replied and called the assistant principal "immature."
"I'm 16 and you're yelling at me," one of the protesters said. "The truth is Jesus Christ died on a cross and rose again. You can be set free from your sins."
But this only angered Ruff even more.
"Listen here, son. I am as gay as the day is long," said Ruff. "I don't give a [expletive] what Jesus tells me about what I should and should not be doing. You are harassing public school students and I will call the police if you don't shup up."
He once again shouted at the teens to leave and to "stop harassing" the children from the school.
The incident further escalated when a man got out from his car and asked him what was wrong. Ruff went into a shouting match with the man as well and threatened to call the police to arrest him. The man then went back to his car and left.
The 18-minute video was uploaded on YouTube and has received more than 166,000 views as of posting time.
One STEM Academy student defended the assistant principal on Facebook and said that Ruff was only protecting his students from the signages of the siblings and was just directing traffic away from school, which was being blocked by the protest.
"Mr. Ruff had every right to defend his students," wrote the Facebook user. "What they are not showing in this video is what the posters actually depicted. There was a horrendous image of a dead baby covered in blood. This image distracted me and I almost rear-ended the person in front of me."
Other parents of STEM Academy students also expressed their support for the assistant principal.
