A mother spurred to action by Nashville’s Covenant School shooting was hauled out of the gallery of the Tennessee House Thursday, placed into custody and eventually loaded into a Tennessee Highway Patrol squad car and driven away.
Allison Polidor — who was holding a small sign protesting a GOP plans for school vouchers and guns — refused to leave when House Speaker Cameron Sexton ordered troopers to clear the chamber’s west gallery. Sexton issued that order after a group of protesters shouted “shame” and “Ku Klux Kameron” following a vote on the state budget for next year.
Several protesters voluntarily left, but the mother of two repeatedly pleaded with troopers not to eject her, telling them: “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t say anything.”
“I didn’t feel like I should have to leave, that it’s my right to sit there and view what laws our lawmakers are passing,” she later told NewsChannel 5 Investigates.
“The troopers just kept talking to me saying, ‘You have to leave, you have to leave. You know what’s going to happen if you don’t leave.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t know what’s going to happen.’ They said, ‘We’ll have to arrest you.’ I said, ‘What are you going to arrest me for? I’m just sitting here quietly.’