Board Member Won’t Be Charged in Office Incident

School board member John Steward will not face criminal charges stemming from his Election Day shouting match with Supt. Ted D. Kimbrough because there is insufficient evidence that he was on the verge of throwing a punch, the district attorney’s office has decided.

“It was just basically an argument between two individuals who don’t like each other,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Herbert R. Lapin said. The matter “is closed as far as we’re concerned,” he said.

The Nov. 5 incident began at the school district’s administrative office when Kimbrough confronted Steward--at the time, a candidate for reelection as well as a consistent critic of the superintendent’s policies.

When Kimbrough asked Steward to remove some of his campaign signs that appeared to be posted on school property, the two men exchanged heated words.

Formal Complaint Filed

Afterward, Kimbrough filed a formal complaint with Compton police, contending that he had been “threatened by Steward and verbally abused and disrespected in my own office” in violation of state education laws.

Steward, who won reelection later in the day, denied that he physically threatened Kimbrough.

After questioning Steward and studying a memorandum submitted by Kimbrough, Lapin said, the argument “just falls short of the type of threat that would indicate to somebody that an imminent fight was about to happen.”

As for Kimbrough’s charge that some of Steward’s campaign signs had been illegally posted, Lapin said, there is some question as to whether the signs were actually on school property. And even if the signs were illegal, he said, there is no evidence that Steward was the person who posted them.