The Ohio principal who attempted to bar police officers from entering her school to investigate a bomb threat last month has a history of hostility towards the cops, The Post has learned.
Newly released bodycam footage shows Ridgeview Middle School Principal Natalie James and her secretary arguing with two on-duty Columbus cops responding to a student’s hoax bomb threat — after telling them they couldn’t enter the building without the school’s security officer present.
The incident, which occurred on March 17, is just the latest dust-up between James and Columbus Division of Police officers, the local police union president told The Post.
Brian Steel, President of the Capital City Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #9, told The Post in an interview that James has “implicit bias and disdain for law enforcement,” and a history of interfering with police business.
“This has been going on for years with this one principal, who has an ongoing pattern of hindering law enforcement,” Steel said, citing “upwards of a dozen” incidents between James and Columbus police officers.
Steel says he’s been fielding calls from Ridgeview parents outraged over James’ behavior.
James Diorio is the parent of a 6th grade son at Ridgeview Middle School. He called James’ interaction with the cops “shameful,” but wasn’t surprised at what he saw.
“She shows no respect to anyone,” Diorio told The Post. “The principal at that school is pretty much a czar — she makes her own rules, and her opinion is the only one that counts.”
Officer Keith Conner, who responded to the March 17 incident at Ridgeview, expressed a similar sentiment after leaving the school that day.
“She is absolutely the most uncooperative person that I’ve ever dealt with in a school system,” Conner is heard saying on the bodycam footage.
That followed a nearly 10 minute argument with James and the secretary, in which both insisted that school protocol precluded the officers from entering without the school security officer.
“What we’ve been told by the district is that the police can’t just go all over the building and do whatever you want to do,” James told the two officers on the scene, before adding that she felt threatened by them.
“I don’t have any hate toward the police, but all of of this escalated-ness and so forth and so on, I do not feel safe, I don’t feel comfortable,” she said.
Officer Conner repeatedly explained that law enforcement has authority over school safety and security officials, and shouldn’t have to wait for permission to respond to an emergency.
“For some reason, you don’t like the police and you want to make things so difficult for us that we don’t want to come to your school,” Conner said to James in the recording.
“I don’t know what in your life happened that you hate us so much that you don’t want to cooperate.”
Ultimately the two officers left the school without making contact with the student responsible for the hoax.
The incident is currently under investigation with the City of Columbus Department of the Inspector General, which declined to comment on the matter, which is under active review.
Steel says he reached out to Columbus City Schools Superintendent Angela Chapman to clarify the district’s protocol regarding police officers conducting official business on school premises, and she assured him she is looking into the issue.
“What she did was illegal. You can’t make a policy that trumps state and local law,” Steel told The Post. “That’s not how that works.”
Columbus City Schools spokesman Mike DeFabbo told The Post that Dr. Chapman and Columbus Police Chief Elaine Bryant both reviewed and discussed the footage and will have a meeting with both of their leadership teams “to reinforce commitments and expectations.”
“I made it clear to the chief of police that any action to discipline [Conner] will not be tolerated,” Steel said. “Our officer did nothing wrong.”
The Columbus Division of Police declined The Post’s request to interview the officers involved.
Franklin County court records show James was arrested in 2022 for domestic violence and assault. The charges were later dismissed.
James did not return The Post’s request for comment.
The post Ohio principal blocked cops from investigating bomb threat and has a ‘disdain for law enforcement,’ police union prez says appeared first on New York Post.
