Hardin County social studies teacher arrested at basketball game

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A Hardin County Schools teacher is facing multiple charges after police say she was involved in an incident at a school sporting event.

According to John Wright, a spokesperson for the school system, it happened Thursday night during a tournament basketball game at Central Hardin High School.

Wright said Leslie McCurry, a social studies teacher at John Hardin High School, became "aggressive" with referees during the game, which was between John Hardin High School and Elizabethtown High School.

John Wright, community relations specialist with Hardin county schools, says McCurry's brother coaches one of the teams who was playing in the game and she may have gotten upset over fouls being called against his team.

"Leslie McCurry, who was sitting behind the bench, became irate after the second technical foul," Wright said.

He said McCurry is the John Hardin High Pep Club sponsor, so she was sitting among students.

When she got aggressive and started using foul language, game officials asked officers to escort her out.

"Officers -- multiple times -- asked her to leave," Elizabethtown Police Officer Virgil Willoughby said. "When they told her she was under arrest...she resisted arrest."

Willoughby said officers even had to take McCurry to the ground to get her in custody.

"It doesn't matter who you are," said Willoughby. "Don't put yourself above the law."

Mccurry has been a teacher at John Hardin since 2003.

Wright says they've never had issues with her before but this is not the example they want to set for their students.

"To see something like this -- that was very unprofessional," Wright said. "It was extremely rude, was not very classy, to see that in front of our children, in front of our students, again very disheartening and embarrassing."

Elizabethtown Police officers, who were already at the game, took her outside and arrested her. According to the Hardin County Detention Center's Web site, she is charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, menacing and criminal trespassing.

Wright says it's too early in the investigation to determine what kind of discipline they will give McCurry.

School officials released a statement Friday afternoon, saying in part: "We will allow the legal process to take its course."

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