FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A face mask dispute ended with a father behind bars, and on Thursday, 50-year-old Dan Bauman and his attorney heard his criminal charge and bond read by a Broward County judge.
“You’re charged in Count 1 of abuse of a child without great bodily harm,” the judge said. “I found probable cause. I’m setting his bond at $5,000. Special condition: No victim contact, no return to the campus unless required by the school.”
Part of the incident leading to Bauman’s arrest Wednesday morning was caught on cell phone video.
Fort Lauderdale police say Bauman was with his daughter outside Fort Lauderdale High School as she tried to go inside without a mask, which is against district policy.
The arrest report says Bauman started videotaping. Students were passing by and one of them did not want to be videotaped, so she tried grabbing his phone.
That’s when, police say, he pushed the student into a fence.
Fort Lauderdale police said Wednesday that Bauman faced a charge of aggravated child abuse, but on Thursday they said that charge was wrong and corrected it to abuse of a child without great bodily harm.
In a video, Bauman’s daughter Isabel described the details of the incident like this:
“We were just talking to the adults, whoever was in charge, right? And then some teenage girl with a mask on just came up to [my father] and then just took the phone,” she said. “He tried to get it back from her. I think it was planned, because all the cops, all the adults, were surrounding him, grabbing him, insisting he was assaulting her.”
Bauman’s daughter has shown up to her school since the first day trying to get in without a mask but hasn’t been able to. Some protestors have joined to stand with her.
Broward County Public Schools issued a statement reading in part: “Regarding the issue of masks, the district’s focus remains on ensuring all students have a safe and healthy learning environment, especially now that they are back in the classrooms.”