The man who disrupted the Baraboo High School graduation last week by charging onto the stage and pushing superintendent Rainey Briggs has been charged with disorderly conduct, court records show.
Matthew Eddy, 49, faces up to 90 days in prison, a $1,000 fine, or both.
Additionally, a Dane County judge granted Briggs a temporary restraining order against Eddy, with an injunction hearing set for next week.
Video captured by TV43 Baraboo shows Eddy jumping onto the stage just as Eddy’s daughter begins to cross the stage to receive her diploma. Eddy grabbed Rainey’s upper arm and forced him away from the line of school officials congratulating graduates. Rainey can be heard saying “you need to get up off of me, man … get away from me, bro.”
In his application for a restraining order, Rainey wrote that Eddy said, “‘you are not going to touch my (expletive) daughter.”
Parent Becky Duranceau captured the incident from the audience perspective.
According to a police report, Eddy told officers that he and his daughter “have had past issues with Rainey and dislike him.” Rainey told police he didn’t know Eddy and could only remember one disciplinary issue involving Eddy’s daughter.
The school resource officer and others escorted Eddy off of the stage, and he left the ceremony. Rainey returned to the handshake line about a minute later, and told police he felt anxiety for the rest of the ceremony.
In a statment issued Thursday, Blacks for Political and Social Action of Dane County president David Hart and vice president Kirby Mack noted that Briggs was the only Black person on the stage at graduation.
“After Dr. Briggs was pushed out of the way and prevented from doing his job, it does not appear that anyone checked on Dr. Briggs’ welfare, and he was forced to continue on amid this trauma,” they wrote. “While this incident could certainly have race neutral explanations, the treatment of Dr.Briggs looks all too familiar to us … After Dr. Briggs was pushed out of the way and prevented from doing his job, it does not appear that anyone checked on Dr. Briggs’ welfare, and he was forced to continue on amid this trauma.”
They also referenced a 2018 incident in which Baraboo students were photographed giving a Nazi salute in a prom photo. Questions of racism were also raised in 2022 when Baraboo High School’s athletic director and two other men were arrested for threatening teens with a flamethrower and forcing them to kneel in the street when they suspected the boys intended to play a Homecoming prank.
The Baraboo School Board issued a statement Tuesday condemning Eddy’s actions.
“As we prepare our students to engage as citizens and community members, the adults in their lives should provide models of how to engage in productive civil dialogue,” the release reads, in part. “What we do not condone is engaging in threatening, intimidating, or physically harming behaviors against anyone in our School District community. No employee of the School District of Baraboo should fear for their physical safety when fulfilling their job duties or at any other time. That this adult felt emboldened to behave in this way in front of hundreds of students and other adults should deeply trouble us all; this type of behavior will not be tolerated.”
Eddy is due to appear in Columbia County court to face the criminal charge on August 14.
