A Michigan school board president is accused of choking and punching a board member during a meeting before she was removed as the board’s leader, officials said Thursday.
The incident occurred at an otherwise "mundane" gathering Wednesday morning in Flint, said Laura MacIntyre, a member and the treasurer of the board, who was leading a meeting about finance issues.
MacIntyre said she was managing the order of comments from board members when Flint Board of Education President Danielle Green exploded.
"Very, very mundane. So mundane I don't even remember what it was that set her off," MacIntyre said Thursday.
Green walked to MacIntyre's seat "and got up right above me, towered over me and started wagging her finger at me," MacIntyre said.
"And I stood up, in surprise, to step back from her — at which point she grabbed my throat and started choking me," MacIntyre said. "She grabbed the top of my head and then slammed my head into the table and started punching my head."
Green did not reply to multiple requests for comment Thursday.
There was no obvious spark for the attack, said school board counsel Charis Lee, a spokeswoman for the district.
"I was just told it was not provoked by individuals who saw it," Lee said Thursday.
Later in the day, trustees removed Green as president but not from the board itself.
There's no mechanism to recall a Flint school board member, and only the governor would have such power, Lee and MacIntyre said
A representative for Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
MacIntyre said she was treated by her physician Wednesday and was in concussion protocol Thursday.
“I’m physically in a lot of pain and struggling,” she said.
There have been no arrests, and the incident is being investigated, Flint Police Detective-Sgt. Tyrone Booth said.
"I can't say that an assault” at a school board meeting “was one that I can recall," Booth said. "Obviously, there are emotional issues that a school board discusses, and sometimes temperatures and personal temperatures go up a little. But I can't say that I can recall an assault that's taken place."
MacIntyre said she'll seek a restraining order against Green. The next school board meeting is set for April 13.
The two board members have known each other for years and have had no friction, MacIntyre said.
"We do not necessarily agree on everything, but we have a working relationship," she said. "There have been disagreements in the past, but nothing, nothing, to warrant this at all."
