A Midlands Father is taking his children out of a private school in Columbia because school officials would not let him display the Confederate flag on his truck while on school property.
Rhett Ingram says that Heathwood Hall is the only school his children have ever known. In fact, he was paying about $26,000 annually to send his kids to the private school. However, when school officials told him to leave his Confederate flag at home, the father of two wouldn’t budge.
“This just ain’t right,” Ingram said.
He said that he began flying the Confederate flag on his truck in 2016 after recent national efforts against the flag.
“I felt like it was being taken. It’s like, ‘wait a minute – that flag doesn’t mean I’m racist,‘” Ingram said. “It doesn’t mean I hate people.”
The father of two says that his children have been attending Heathwood Hall since they were just four years old, and now 14 and 11. But Ingram says he didn’t always fit in with the other parents.
“I drive a truck. I show up dirty, and sweaty and nasty. I might not be eloquent and I don’t have a degree,” Ingram said.
When the Father showed up on school grounds with a confederate flag on that truck in 2016, Ingram says he was approached by the school’s headmaster.
“We had complaints and your flag’s not welcome here,” is what Ingram claims the headmaster told him.
He says after a sit-down and multiple discussions, “Basically, at the end of the day he didn’t change his view and I didn’t change mine.”
This week, Ingram enrolled his children into a local public school hoping his kids understand his actions, even if they don’t just yet.
“Ultimately, my children are the ones that hurt. It meant more to me for when my kids get old, they look back and say, ‘you know what, dad told me to stand for what’s right.’ Always,” Ingram said.
The school has placed Ingram on a No Trespass Notice at the end of September. As a private institution, the school has a legal right to ban the flag on its property.
The school has not provided any comments to the allegations.
Dog Rescues Baby From Abusive Babysitter
A baby boy in Charleston, S.C., is safe and his family’s dog has been named a hero, after the dog alerted the boy’s parents about an abusive babysitter.
New parents Benjamin and Hope Jordan were extremely thorough in their search for a babysitter for their baby son, Finn.
After a background check on 22-year-old Alexis Khan came up squeeky clean, the Jordans thought that they had found a responsible person to look after their baby while they were at work during the day.
But little did they know – that the exact opposite was true and that Khan would verbally and physically abuse their 7-month-old son for nearly five months before she was even caught.
Thanks to the family’s dog, who is a Labrador Retriever–German Shepherd mix Killian, Khan is now behind bars where she belongs.
Killian was the one and only witness to the abuse that Finn suffered at the hands of his babysitter, and the loyal Lab mix was not afraid to make his feelings about Alexis Khan known to his owners.
Whenever Khan entered the Jordan’s house, Killian would growl and stand between her and baby Finn, seemingly defending the baby from his babysitter.
Benjamin and Hope were in complete shock.
“About five months into her being our baby sitter, we started to notice that our dog was very protective of our son when she would come in the door,” Benjamin tells WCSC.
“He was very aggressive towards her and a few times we actually had to physically restrain our dog from going towards her.”
Benjamin and Hope could not believe that their dog, who acted warm and friendly towards everyone else he’d ever met, behaved in such an unusual manner around the babysitter.
Taking a page out of Lassie’s book, Killian had persistently tried to warn Finn’s parents about the babysitter’s abusive behavior.
In the end, Benjamin and Hope could no longer ignore the message what Killian was trying so desperately to convey. Hope suggested to her husband that they hide an iPhone beneath the sofa one day, hoping to record what was going on in their home.
With the phone tucked out of sight, ready to capture what happens during the day, Benjamin and Hope left for work. They wondered if perhaps Khan yelled at Killian while they were away, which would have been unacceptable.
However, the Jordans were not prepared to discover that the woman they’d trusted was in fact acting violently towards their baby — and that’s exactly what they heard on the secret iPhone recording.
“It started with cussing,” Benjamin said. “Then you hear slap noises and his crying changes from a distress cry to a pain cry. I just wanted to reach through the audio tape, go back in time and just grab him up.”
The concerned parents also heard what they believed to be the sounds of Khan shaking Finn on the recording — something which could have easily killed or permanently disabled their son.
“To know that five months I had handed my child to a monster, not knowing what was going on in my house for that day,” Benjamin says in utter disbelief.
After the discovery, Khan has pled guilty to assault and battery in a Charleston Circuit Court. She must serve 1 to 3 years in prison for abusing Finn.
The babysitter will be up for parole in 1 year but must remain on a child abuse registry upon release.
Benjamin believes that if it weren’t for Killian, Finn might have lost his young life at the hands of his violent babysitter.
“Had our dog not alerted us to the trouble, had my wife’s instincts not said we need to make something happen, it could have been Finn that was killed by the babysitter,” Benjamin says. “You never know.”
Benjamin hopes that his family’s story will give other parents pause and encourage them not to ignore any signs that their kids could be in danger — especially if those signs are coming from a faithful family pet.
“He is a very personable dog so for him to show aggression toward anyone is a sign that something was wrong,” Benjamin said to Fox News of hero dog Killian. “We hope other parents … can learn from our lesson.”