The public is getting regular updates on crime in Columbia County schools as the district works on transparency through its newly-created police force.
In the first few weeks of school, the district has shared updates on gun-violence threats, students with tasers and a teacher accused of inappropriate contact with a former student.
Richmond County is another story.
In Richmond County, they have arrested at least two people with bringing weapons on school campus without any news releases to local media.
MORE: Columbia County schools have five incidents in the first month of school
On Wednesday, Josey student Tynesha White was arrested at the high school after administrators searched her purse and found a black taser, according to an arrest warrant obtained by The Augusta Press. The 17-year-old student was charged with having a weapon on school grounds and booked into the Richmond County Detention Center. She spent at least two nights in jail before being released on a $5,700 bond over the weekend.
And during Josey’s football game with Hephzibah on Aug. 19, authorities allegedly found teenager Jordan Tyrere Ferguson with a pellet gun in his left rear pocket on campus. An arrest warrant says the 19-year-old was carrying a black semi-automatic Sig Sauer C02 at the time, and he went to jail for possession of a weapons on school grounds.
Richmond County School Trustee Venus Cain said she would support the announcement of such arrests by the school district, but she believes the community is well aware when criminal incidents occur. She said Saturday night that she had not heard of the arrests, however.
“I’d bet that 10-1, if there is a weapon, the media may not know, but many times the community knows before I get it,” she said. “By the time they do a letter and a letter is sent home to the parents, someone in the community knows and puts it on the social media and has called a board member.”
MORE: Lakeside Middle student arrested for threat of gun violence at school
Cain said the recent revelations of school crime in Columbia County is overdue.
“Everybody knew it went on, but it was just an unspoken word, that you didn’t say anything negative about Columbia County,” she said. “Their kids didn’t do anything wrong. Their kids weren’t smoking weed. They were just perfect angels. And Richmond County, we just went to the dogs.”
Since school started, Columbia County schools have released multiple stories of crime, including a Grovetown Middle School student being charged Aug. 26 after allegedly threatening to shoot the school and another student; a Columbia Middle School student found Aug. 25 with a “personal defense device capable of emitting a low-voltage shock, school officials said; and a Lakeside Middle School student was detained by law enforcement on Sunday, Aug. 21, for “threatening gun violence against the school” in a social media post.
In Richmond County, schools Chief Information Officer Lynthia Ross has issued no such releases of school violence, leaving many to think the district was quiet at the start of the year.
Cain, who posts her cell number on the district’s website for easy communication, said everything should be laid out there.
“Not only that, I think the problem is not so much as to what the media knows as much as why is this happening. Why have things gone south so quickly with our students and our children? To me, that is the bigger issue,” she said.
Parents may argue it comes down to leadership, but Cain said she has nothing to do with how a child leaves for school each morning.
“That’s kind of how I feel about it,” she said. “I am never going to say we don’t have any incidents. I would be a liar. We have our fair share of crap just like other school districts. It just goes back to the greater issue: Why aren’t parents doing their due diligence to help the school district, because we can’t do it all.”
Greg Rickabaugh is the Jail Report contributor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at greg.rickabaugh@theaugustapress.com
