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Mother who posted video of school fight considering legal action over arrest

Posted at 10:14 PM, Mar 13, 2019
and last updated 2019-03-14 00:13:35-04

One mother is considering legal action over her arrest for posting a video of a school fight on social media.

Maegan Barras was arrested by Scott police and booked with unlawfully posting a video of a criminal act for notoriety.

The charges were declined because the district attorney says Barras was not directly involved with the crime she posted online.

“I honestly didn’t think I couldn’t post it because I’ve seen, as I’ve scrolled through my news feed before, I’ve seen videos like that,” said the mother of three.

For the past month, Barras has been trying to make sense of her arrest.

She said she got the video of the fight at Acadiana High from her son who’s a freshman. He had received the video from another student on Snapchat.

“In the video, I saw a cop was already involved. My son told me the kid was already taken to the hospital. I knew it was all handled. So, as far as turning it in, I didn’t think I needed to do that because it was already handled at the school. So, I posted just kind of for awareness because my son is a freshman at that school. It could’ve been my son,” she said.

The next day, Barras said she got a call, asking her to come to the school so they could question her son. Instead, she was handcuffed and taken to jail.

“I didn’t know what I did wrong. I mean, I thought I did something wrong because they were arresting me,” said Barras.

Attorneys for Barras say a lawsuit is not off the table.

“There’s no question that Maegan has remedies against, whether it be the arresting officer for sure. Now, it’s my understanding that, under the school resource agreement, they would be almost co-employees of the Scott PD and the Lafayette Parish School System,” said Lafayette attorney Clayton Burgess.

He and two other lawyers are representing Barras.

Burgess said it was a wrongful arrest, and they’re exploring their legal options.

“Hopefully, this will raise awareness in more than one spot, awareness for possible violence in schools but also those folks in law enforcement– that civilians have constitutional rights.m You know, you can’t just knee-jerk react and run off and arrest someone because you’re angry or because, quite frankly, you’ve misread the law that bad,” said Burgess.

As for Barras, she said it hasn’t been easy, but she just hopes to move forward.

“I mean it’s stressful. I’m staying calm, and I’m staying quiet,” she said.