A New Jersey school district's anti-bullying director was fired last week for allegedly trying to threaten a student to keep quiet about an altercation between the director and a 16-year-old girl, the New Jersey Herald reported.
Ron Rivera, 55, a retired New Jersey State Police captain who also served as the security director for the Vernon Township School District, was fired following an internal investigation into the matter, the Herald reported.
The matter was first publicly disclosed at the May 18 Vernon Board of Education meeting. An 18-year-old student at Vernon Township High School, who asked that his name not be published, said that he had been confronted by Rivera in the school stairwell after the alleged altercation and "threatened" by him not to say anything about what he had witnessed.
The altercation, which was confirmed by a school official requesting anonymity, involved a 16-year-old female sophomore on whom Rivera allegedly used physical force, the Herald reported.
The student who witnessed it said he later reported the details of what occurred to Assistant Principal Nancy LoPresti, who contacted school district officials, the Herald reported.
A retired 27-year veteran state trooper, Rivera took over in January as the Vernon Township School District's security director and anti-bullying coordinator, the Herald reported. He could not be reached for comment, the newspaper reported.
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