A South Carolina mother was arrested after confronting her son’s 9-year-old bullies, a Greenville County sheriff’s report revealed.
The mother, Jamie Rathburn, confronted her son’s third grade classmates after the child was allegedly continuously bullied. Security footage captured the mother pointing her finger at the children and yelling at them before she was pulled into a classroom with a teacher; she was eventually seen abruptly leaving that classroom.
Rathburn admitted in a now-deleted Facebook post that she “snuck into the school and confronted kids that she estimates to be 9 years old,” the sheriff’s report said, according to NBC News.
Multiple reports indicated that Rathburn abruptly entered Greenbrier Elementary School on May 17, bypassing a sign-in sheet. She then “circled” her son’s classmates and got “in their faces.” Though the surveillance video lacks audio, witnesses say the mother was screaming at the children about the alleged bullying.
According to WHAM 1180 News, “Witnesses told police they could hear Rathburn screaming until a teacher asked her to speak privately in a classroom. Rathburn cursed out the teacher before storming out of the building.”
In the Facebook video posted by the mother following the incident, which has since been deleted, Rathburn said her child “had dealt with bullying all year long, and school officials did nothing to stop it from happening,” noted WHAM. “After her son was pulled off the top of the slide during recess, the school singled her son out and separated him from other students so they could watch him closer. That was the final straw, and Rathburn confronted her son’s classmates the next morning.”
Rathburn, speaking to Greenville News, explained that her bullying concerns with regard to her son were essentially going unanswered by administration, recalling incidents dating back to December.
The mother also noted in the Facebook video that “she wasn’t sure which boy she was looking for, so she wanted them to know that ‘she was not playing around and that they better stop messing with her kid,’” Greenville News said of the sheriff’s report.
Police began investigating the incident and took the mother into custody three days later, where she was charged with interfering, disrupting, or disturbing the school. She has also been banned from entering Greenbrier Elementary.
“I am absolutely ashamed of myself for the actions of walking up into that school,” Rathburn told Greenville News. “You know, I owe the parents, the children and the staff an apology for that. Absolutely, it was wrong. But honestly, I don’t know how I could have gotten my message across any other way.”
“I can’t go eat lunch with my children,” she added. “I can’t watch them on field day. As class mom, that’s devastating.”
