Misdemeanor Assault Charges Filed against Rhonda Hall
On August 15, 2019, the state of Arkansas filed assault charges against Rhonda Hall, former principal of Mabelvale Middle School (MMS) in the Little Rock School District (LRSD.) These assault charges spring from an incident that happened at MMS on January 30, 2019, when Rhonda Hall punched a student in the face.
Rhonda Hall’s victim, a middle-school girl, had been fighting with another student. Hall separated the two students, keeping one inside a classroom while one waited outside for a security officer. Instead of closing the classroom door between the girls, however, Rhonda Hall remained standing in the open doorway. After a few seconds (caught on surveillance video) Rhonda Hall exited the room and punched the outdoor girl in the face.
Immediately after the incident, Rhonda Hall went to the police station and filed a police report in which she asserted the opposite of what the video shows: according to her report, the student punched Rhonda Hall. The student was then required to sign a written statement, admitting to the “truth” of Rhonda Hall’s report. (Does this remind anybody else of Korey Wise?)
The student was charged with battery, convicted, and (according to her mother) sentenced to four months of house arrest. LRSD’s Director of Student Services, Freddie Fields, transferred the girl to LRSD’s “Alternative Learning Environment” (ALE) at Hamilton Learning Academy for the remainder of her school year. Fortunately, now that the truth has come out, this student has been released from ALE. Her mother says she is at J.A. Fair High School this year.
The State of Arkansas convicted this girl of battery in the second degree for allegedly punching her principal in the face. However, now that the charge is reversed, Rhonda Hall is only being charged with a class B misdemeanor — assault — for the same right jab. The State of Arkansas is letting Rhonda Hall entirely off the hook for filing a false police report. What gives?
The main difference between “assault” and “battery” is that battery requires physical contact. You can assault someone by just making them believe they are in immediate danger of a physical attack. However, if your fist makes contact with their face, that’s battery. Watching Rhonda Hall’s fist hit her student’s face tells me she should have been charged with battery — not simple assault.
In addition to battery, the prosecuting attorney should have charged Rhonda Hall with child maltreatment — which would cause her to lose her license.
In Arkansas, striking a child over age 12 with a closed fist is child maltreatment if it is done “with physical injury and without justifiable cause.” Bruises, swelling, headaches, and pain can all count as “injury” in this case. This student’s mother asserts her daughter suffered injury from Rhonda Hall’s actions.
Additionally, no one who has watched this video tells me they think Rhonda Hall was acting in self-defense, or with any other justifiable cause. Witnesses say the girl was demanding her cell phone, but Rhonda Hall was refusing to return the phone and threatening to expel the girl from school — not defending her safety — immediately before she threw the punch.
LRSD’s superintendent, Mike Poore, clearly believes Rhonda Hall’s actions rise to the level of child maltreatment. On August 2, Poore placed Mabelvale Assistant Principal Alicia Troutman on administrative leave so the district could investigate and potentially fire her for failing to report child maltreatment to the Department of Human Services (DHS.)
Why isn’t the State of Arkansas prosecuting Rhonda Hall appropriately?
Police officers are mandated reporters of child maltreatment. If the State of Arkansas charged Rhonda Hall with child maltreatment, then LRSD security officers and the police who collected surveillance videos and student statements might be liable for failing to report the evidence of Hall’s violent assault against a child to DHS.
Little Rock Police Officer Gregory Mobley is Rhonda Hall’s good friend. He hosted her birthday party last weekend, inviting her friends Jennifer Nelson, Shikara Linsy, and Falloncia Earnest to attend, along with several other LRSD employees.
Nelson, Linsy, and Earnest are the three Mabelvale employees who appear on surveillance footage to have destroyed evidence of fraudulent mismanagement of federal money at MMS.
When LRSD’s Director of Safety and Security, Ron Self, began investigating the apparent removal and destruction of documents at MMS by these three women, he found written statements (dated January 30, 2019) from student witnesses stashed in a box at the school. Multiple LRSD employees assert that Rhonda Hall confiscated these statements before the school’s assistant principal could turn them over to the police. LRPD likely only received the altered version of these statements, written under the direct supervision of Rhonda Hall.
It appears that Rhonda Hall’s friends on the force allowed her to manipulate the evidence before they collected it. LRSD may also have withheld the surveillance video showing her punching the student. Certainly, neither LRSD nor LRPD retained a copy of the video for future examination.
Thus, the state’s refusal to charge Rhonda Hall with child maltreatment kind of makes sense: LRSD and the police won’t be liable for their failure to report or investigate child maltreatment if it appears that no child maltreatment ever happened.
Thanks to my source/s at Mabelvale/LRSD for preserving the evidence. And thank you, too, to the 13 staff members who have already written to Mike Poore, expressing their support for the Assistant Principal, Alicia Troutman. Poore appears to be lining Troutman up to take the fall for Rhonda Hall. Wouldn’t it be incredibly surreal and cruel if Troutman got fired when Rhonda Hall did not?
Not just cruel and surreal, but racist. Since Troutman is white.
Anyone can call the DHS Child Abuse hotline and report this. They have to investigate this. Even though schools are mandatory reporters, they don’t always report, especially not principals. Maybe you and the child’s mother should call in a specific report. When they get the call, technically they have to investigate.