Man breaks silence after angry father shoved him during daughter's graduation because he ‘didn’t want him touching her’
The man who was shoved out of the way by a father during his daughter's graduation ceremony has broke his silence.
Superintendant Dr Rainey Briggs was pushed aside by Matthew Eddy at Baraboo High School’s graduation event, in Wisconsin, US, on 31 May.
As his daughter was about to shake Dr Briggs' hand, the student's father physically forced the superintendent away, across the stage.
Watch the incident unfold below:
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As shown in the clip above, Eddy grabs Dr Briggs' right arm, while saying 'that's my daughter'.
"You better get up off me man. Get away from me bro," Dr Briggs said.
Explaining why he did it, the father told police during questioning: “I did not want him to be able to shake her f**king hand because he does not deserve it from her, after all the s**t she went through in this district.
“He rolled his eyes when I brought up the fact the same thing happened to her and it p****d me off.
“She was expelled for doing the same thing that was done to her, and nothing was done to the previous people.”
Meanwhile, Dr Briggs has since told the Daily Mail that 'an apology just doesn’t make things go away'.
He said: "I haven’t heard directly from Mr. Eddy, but I did have a phone call yesterday with his attorney.
"The outreach was really to indicate that he, Matthew, understands his mishap in terms of what he did, what he’s caused. He’s remorseful.
"I took that as some form of apology, but that’s not something I think at this time amounts to a solid apology from my perspective.
"I don’t think an apology, an 'I’m sorry' makes this go away because there’s a lot of harm that was caused.
"My heart goes out to, number one, his daughter, and to those 250 other students that were in the space. This is a moment in time for them that they’ll never get back the way they had hoped for this to go.
"That was to walk across that stage with excitement, feeling like they’ve learned a lot, feeling like they’d experienced some amazing teachers. That was all to some degree pushed aside that particular night."
A statement from Hailey Wagner, the director of communications for the School District of Baraboo, said: "Our primary focus remains on celebrating the achievements of our graduates.
"The evening celebrated their accomplishments, and we are incredibly proud of them.
"We would like to emphasize that the safety and well-being of our students, staff, and community members is a top priority.
"The School District of Baraboo is taking this incident very seriously."
Anish Vij