KINDERGARTEN PLAY GETS BROKEN P BY POLICE AFTER PARENTS BRAWL OVER BEST SEATS

By Sarah Kaplan

The Washington Times
March 25, 2016

Guys.

We know that school productions can be stressful affairs. There are carpools to coordinate and kids to corral. Great Aunt June’s hearing aid needs adjusting; teenage cousin Ralph has to be bribed to attend. Sonia will demand a juice box five minutes before curtain, then inevitably spill it on her costume two minutes later.

But still. It’s probably not a good sign when the local police have to be called to the local school auditorium to break up an all-out brawl. Especially when the brawl involves not the collection of kindergartners standing on stage, but their parents.

“Yeah, it’s kind of shocking,” said Michael Vasquez, the bemused sheriff’s deputy tasked with handling media inquiries about what went down at Ridgemoor Elementary School’s kindergarten play on Wednesday.

According to Vasquez, the fight broke out over “seating privileges”: Someone walked to the front of the auditorium to film the production. Other audience members registered their discontent. Insults — and eventually fists — began to fly.

The local police arrived at the Manifee, Calif., school soon after to find several adults “pushing and shoving” one another, Vasquez said. No one was arrested, but a citation was issued for one person to appear in court at a later date. Then everyone was sent home.

Vasquez said that the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office is still investigating the incident.

He chuckled: “Sometimes adults act in funny ways.”

Uh huh.

Menifee Union School District spokeswoman Betti Cadmus told the Riverside, Calif. Press-Enterprise that Ridgemoor students were given letters about the incident to take home on Thursday. The district also made phone calls to families in both Spanish and English. The play does not appear to have been rescheduled.

Grown-ups, this is why we can’t have nice things.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Manifee is a city of around 78,000 people in southwestern Riverside County. Holy shit! When I was with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department in the ’50s, I never even heard of the place.

According to Wikipedia, on June 3, 2008, the residents of the communities encompassing the Menifee area voted to incorporate together to form Riverside County's 26th city. The new City of Menifee was officially established on October 1, 2008.