Mother’s angry rant in a middle school classroom over alleged bullying leads to charge

A mother who allegedly stormed into an Orange County middle school classroom to confront students she claimed were bullying her daughter has been charged with a misdemeanor, authorities said.

Christian Chylyn Prince-Tinsley, 33, of Mission Viejo was charged this week with one count of interference with the good order and administration of a school classroom with the intent to disrupt, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.

The charge comes several months after the May 14 incident, in which authorities said Prince-Tinsley walked into her daughter’s class at Niguel Hills Middle School without warning and without checking in at the school’s front office and asked the teacher to pass out a stack of tickets that read “Free ass-kicking. Must be 18 or older to redeem.”

Then she told the students to leave her daughter alone, or their family members might get hurt, authorities said.

“If you all bully my daughter, if you look at her the wrong way, if you breathe the wrong way, send your mom to me,” the mother can be heard saying in a cellphone video that was recorded by a student and aired by KCBS-TV Channel 2. “Sisters, aunts, anybody over 18, I’ll [mess] them all up. Do you understand me?”

After the teacher called the school office for help, Prince-Tinsley was escorted off the campus by the assistant principal, according to prosecutors.

“This incident was way more than an attempt to address accusations of bullying,” said Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer. “This was a deliberate act intended to terrorize a room full of young children in the very space where they are supposed to be safe.”

Ryan Burris, spokesman for the Capistrano Unified School District, told The Times in May that the woman had complained to the district about her daughter’s bullying a week before the incident. An investigation deemed her claims unsubstantiated, he said.

“It seemed to come to an acceptable conclusion,” Burris said.

But for the mother, that did not appear to be the case. The woman told a campus administrator the day she was escorted out of the classroom that the bullying had continued after the investigation and had extended to social media.

Burris said in May that the additional claims would be investigated. The Times could not reach Burris on Wednesday morning for comment.

Prince-Tinsley told KCBS-TV Channel 2 in May that she didn’t regret her actions, despite the potential for legal repercussions.

“Sometimes if you’ve done everything you can do the way you’re supposed to do it and it doesn’t get resolved, then sometimes you have to decide if you’re willing to go a step forward and deal with the consequences,” she said. “I was prepared for that, because my daughter is No. 1.”

If convicted, Prince-Tinsley faces a maximum of one year in jail. She is scheduled to appear in court Nov. 6.