The North Pole Police Department took the unusual step of jumping into the comment thread of a news report on the Fairbanks’ KTVF station’s Facebook page to explain an incident at North Pole High School that ended in the arrest of a parent who was trying to pick his daughter up after school last week.
The comment section on the news story at Facebook had just gotten started, with a couple of people saying that parent Keith Fons was in the wrong. The police stopped in on the page to comment and give their side of the story.
According to the police, a couple of incidents had happened at the school over two days, but it appears no one was ever in danger, although students were prevented from leaving campus after school one day for what has been described as 10 minutes and 20 minutes.
Fons videotaped himself going inside the school on Sept. 18 to try to get his daughter out, since he was not given any reason why she or other students should be detained. The police later arrested Fons for making people feel uncomfortable and they charged him with Fourth Degree Assault, although he did not touch anyone or threaten to harm them. One school staff member said she felt unsafe around him.
Fons had made several statements that contained curse words and was insistent that school officials release his daughter.
Here is the North Pole Police account of events:
Good Morning folks,
Some clarification on this issue. On the 18th NPPD responded to three separate incidents at the HS. The first was a report of a threat made on a bus the day before (17th.) After working with school staff to identify all involved this threat was found to be unfounded.
Next on the 18th, we responded to a report of a disturbance involving another NPHS student. This event was not related to the prior threat on the bus. The student was contacted near the football field and the situation was ultimately resolved peacefully with no arrests made.
Since this disturbance occurred just as students were getting ready to leave the school, staff opted to keep the students in a short “sit-tight” to give NPPD time to resolve the disturbance without flooding the area with other students and their vehicles. Since the students had already begun to leave and because the disturbance was localized near the football fields some students were paused at the front entrance of the school for a short time. They were not in any danger as a result of the other incident. These are the facts that precipitated our contact with Keith Fons. While we cannot share any further details about that situation at this time we would ask all community members to please exercise trust and work together with school staff and police for the safety of the students in our schools. When a dynamic incident occurs the worst possible thing someone can do is inject themselves into what is going on without having all the facts. This creates an unnecessary distraction for all involved and could compromise public safety in an emergency. Additionally, reacting to public safety professionals that are trying to keep a situation calm with hostility is never appropriate or helpful. It also sets a negative example for the students who need to trust their teachers should a dangerous situation arise in the future. Thank you for your time!
Any further questions may be directed to LT Smith at [email protected]
Fons says that it’s unreasonable for police to say they cannot talk about this incident, while at the same time going to great lengths to comment about him and what happened.
Officer Smith has cited Fons in the past for having Christmas lights on his vehicle during the holidays.
The police have argued their case in the court of public opinion, he says, by saying, “the worst possible thing someone can do is inject themselves into what is going on without having all the facts.”
Fons, who has set up a GoFundMe account to help him pay for his defense, may also have questions about whether police have created a scenario where he cannot get a fair trial in his community, due to the police comments.
View his video account of what he saw and did at North Pole High School at this earlier story, linked below. Caution: Spicy language in the video.
