Misinformation caused this in Arizona 

TLDR: 3 men in Arizona came into an elementary school with zip ties to make a "citizens arrest" over the covid quarantine policy when one of their children was exposed to someone with covid and the father was asked to keep their child home for a week.

I copied stories from 2 different postings I saw online, as each one had slightly different information. USA Today talks about the incident, while The Daily Beast, had some additional information about the father's arrest and alt-right political views.

USA TODAY - https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/09/03/principal-threatened-after-sending-student-home-covid-exposure/5717744001/

Police were called to an Arizona elementary school after a parent and two other men allegedly confronted a principal over a student being sent home after coming in contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19.

Diane Vargo, the principal of Mesquite Elementary School in Tucson, Arizona, told USA TODAY that the father entered the school with his son and was aggressive toward school staff over the boy being sent home.

She brought the man into her office, and, approximately 10 minutes later, he was joined by two other men. One of the men was holding black zip ties, and the father and another man were filming the principal on their cell phones.

"[The father] was very upset and demanded that his son stay at school. And I said he can’t. We’re just following protocols. He had a phone in my face. He was telling me that there’s more people coming," Vargo said.

"Those two other men barged into my office and blocked my doorway, and one of the men had these large black zip ties in his hand, and the other man had a phone on me as well," she added.

The elementary school earlier on Thursday contacted the father to confirm that his son and other students were exposed to a person who tested positive for coronavirus.

The group of men then came to the school and threatened to perform a "citizen's arrest" on the principal if the boy was not allowed to return to school.

"I tried to deescalate before all of that, but they were aggressive, and I felt threatened. I felt scared," Vargo said.

The Pima County Health Department has said children must stay at home for seven days after a confirmed exposure to COVID-19. Students are allowed to return to school if they test negative for the virus five days into quarantine and if they have no symptoms for a week.

Vargo asked the men to leave her office during the confrontation, but they refused. She then called the police, but the men left by the time officers arrived.

The principal added that the boy "witnessed all of that – the threats, the zip ties, the aggressiveness, the phones in my face, the demands."

She said she wants to listen to parents' concerns and that she knows that these are "challenging times" for families.

"We all know that students do better when they're at school. We all know that. But in order for us to remain open, we have to follow these guidelines," she said.

Vargo told USA TODAY that she has received an outpouring of support after the confrontation and that her office is now full of flowers and words of encouragement.

"I have to say the community across the nation, man, has been so supportive, extremely supportive," she said.

The Tucson Police Department confirmed to USA TODAY that officers responded to the school “over a fight brewing.” An arrest was made on Thursday off school grounds, and the individual was cited and released on misdemeanor trespassing charges.

The Arizona incident comes as teachers and school officials across the country have faced angry parents calling for fewer pandemic restrictions in schools. One parent in Texas allegedly ripped a face mask off of a teacher during an altercation in Austin last month.

The Daily Beast - https://www.thedailybeast.com/arizona-dad-rishi-rambaran-arrested-after-angry-trio-threatens-to-zip-tie-principal-over-covid-rules?source=articles&via=rss

Police arrested a 40-year-old Arizona dad after he stormed into an elementary school principal’s office with a friend wielding plastic handcuffs, insisting the administration broke the law by asking his child and six others to wear a mask and quarantine after being in close contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19.

“I can tell you the end result of that incident was we did make one arrest for trespassing,” Sgt. Richard Gradillas of the Tucson, Arizona, Police Department told The Daily Beast, identifying the dad arrested as Rishi Rambaran.

Two men accompanied Rambaran on Thursday as he ambushed Principal Diane Vargo while she sat with another educator at the Mesquite Elementary School in Tucson. One of the men, Kelly Walker, livestreamed the incident on Instagram, explaining that Rambaran, who is also known as “Reese,” had called him and asked him to be there in case he needed backup. The third man, who has not been identified, stood in the doorway of Vargo’s office with a fistful of “law enforcement-grade” zip ties at the ready—as the trio was prepared to make a citizen’s arrest, Walker said.

“When this kind of coercion and bullying is perpetrated by school administrators, breaking the law, a citizens’ arrest is an option worth looking into,” Walker wrote on Facebook. Gradillas told the Beast that in his 14 years on the force, he’s “never seen a citizens’ arrest.”

The Vail School District’s COVID policy follows public health guidance issued by Pima County, which requires students to quarantine at home for at least a week after exposure. The school in fact was abiding by Pima’s rules, and had not violated any laws by asking the students to mask up or quarantine.

Walker, a local marketing strategist and copywriter, co-owns a coffee shop in Tucson with his wife and in-laws. The shop, which describes itself as “Tucson’s hub of Freedom and delicious coffee,” recently hosted a meet-and-greet with far-right author and convicted felon Dinesh D’Souza. Next month, Walker, who compared Thursday’s elementary school dust-up to Rosa Parks’ struggle for equal rights, will be welcoming Matthew Lohmeier, a disgraced Space Force lieutenant colonel who was relieved of his post in May over a self-published book warning of an impending “white genocide,” as well as a “neo-Marxist agenda” within the military “designed to patiently and methodically overthrow the US government and replace it with a communist dictatorship.”

The surreal event at Mesquite Elementary began with a message from Rambaran, Walker said in a video he streamed while driving over to meet him.

“I’m headed to Mesquite Elementary School right now, where a friend just notified me and some others that his son was indiscriminately taken to the office to be quarantined because supposedly someone had decided he but not other kids in this classroom were exposed to COVID,” said Walker, a father of five who reportedly homeschools his own children. “And they shoved a mask on his face, wouldn’t let him call his parents, and now his dad is there… [T]he school is blatantly breaking the law, blatantly going against the will of the people. I think this community has expressed that they’re not going to have this kind of bullying of our kids, these kinds of scare tactics.”

In reality, administrators at Mesquite Elementary had reported a positive COVID case to the Pima County Health Department, which requires schools to provide the names of anyone that has been exposed to someone testing positive for the virus.

Walker said he was prepared to “raise hell,” and insisted the school couldn’t take the law “into their own hands” by instructing a student to quarantine.

Once inside Vargo’s office, the principal listened patiently as Rambaran and Walker attempted to browbeat her into reversing the quarantine order. In video shot by Walker, Rambaran can be seen calling the police and asking them to arrest Vargo. If Rambaran’s child wasn’t allowed back into the classroom immediately, the group said they were prepared to execute a citizens’ arrest.

Vargo, who did not respond to a request for comment, then asked the three to leave the premises. When they refused, Vargo walked out and called the police. The trio departed the scene before cops arrived.

Rambaran was taken into custody about two hours after the fracas, and was later released, according to Gradillas. In a follow-up video recorded by Walker and posted to his coffee shop’s Instagram page, Rambaran complains, “They portrayed me to be this monster… They cried and whined about how I refused to leave,” saying to Walker that the police are now “after you and the other party” that was there.

Gradillas confirmed to The Daily Beast that more arrests “could be made.” The police showed up at Walker’s coffee shop after the incident, but he ducked them and wrote on Instagram, “Come back with a warrant.”

Walker, perhaps not surprisingly, sees things somewhat differently.

“No one ‘planned’ to make an arrest,” Walker wrote in an email to The Daily Beast. “No one was ‘threatened.’ The father asked the officer to respond, come to the school, and arrest the administration because they were currently breaking the law by forcing kids to put on masks (meanwhile the administrators were NOT wearing masks themselves). The officer asked the father to come down to the police station and file the report. The father asked for written documentation of why they pulled his son, and once he received that, he left. The police only showed up at the school 2 hours after that.”

Rambaran was unable to be reached. Walker did not respond when asked if he could provide contact info for him.

To some, Walker is simply a pest. To others, he’s someone “making a stand.” He makes no secret of his extreme views, including the incorrect belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by anti-Trump Democrats, using his coffee house’s blog as a platform.

“The 2020 election was demonstrably fraudulent; treasonous usurpers are now in office from the White House on down,” Walker wrote in July. “As a result, the American people have been fettered with egregious violations of our civil rights without recourse or restoration. It is past time to declare our Independence as a Nation of sovereign Free People and notify this governing oligarchy that they no longer have the consent of the Governed.”

Walker also claims to believe that the U.S. is “on a sure and certain path to democide,” as he wrote in late August, comparing government mask mandates and vaccine guidance to the “Holocaust in Germany, the Warsaw Ghetto genocide, the murder of millions of Russians and Chinese under Communist regimes, the Killing Fields of Cambodia.”

Last September, Walker was arrested at a Pima County Board of Supervisors meeting for refusing to stop using foul language. In October, after three failed inspections for ignoring Pima’s masking and social distancing requirements, Walker’s coffee house was shut down by county health inspectors. When it reopened, Walker posted a picture of white supremacist meme Pepe the Frog on Facebook, which he captioned: “Sales Person [sic] of the Month.” Area residents who complained got doxxed.

“I’m working so very hard to wake people up,” Walker posted on social media last week.

On Monday, Walker posted a tribute to a friend, father, and anti-masker who recently succumbed to COVID.

The Vail Unified School District, which includes Mesquite Elementary School, has endured no shortage of rowdy interactions with parents who reject public health guidelines under the guise of “freedom.” In April, police had to be called to maintain order when dozens of unmasked parents forced their way into a school board meeting and refused to leave.

According to official data, there is currently one active COVID case at Mesquite Elementary School. Across the entire district, 47 students and eight staff were positive for the virus as of Aug. 29. The district said it will be sending a letter to parents of Mesquite Elementary students about Thursday’s incident.