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SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLERMike Mason of WFTS-Ch. 28 is accused of being disruptive and trespassing at a school function. Misdemeanor charges are sought.
TAMPA - School officials say WFTS-Ch. 28 investigative reporter Mike Mason had every right to attend a meeting at Westchase Elementary School last week, where parents and administrators discussed a planned expansion of the school.
But school district spokesman Mark Hart said the reporter went too far when he started dabbing at windows with a cotton swab, filling a vial and a petri dish with "unknown substances," and "shoving a microphone in administrators' faces."
The school district has filed a report with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office and wants the state attorney's office to charge Mason with disrupting a school function and trespassing after being ordered to leave - both misdemeanors.
State attorney's spokeswoman Pam Bondi said her office has not yet received information about the Oct. 13 incident, which comes as Mason completes a pretrial diversion program following charges that he doctor-shopped to get prescriptions for painkillers, including OxyContin. If he completes that program, those charges will be dropped.
Wednesday, Ch. 28 officials defended their investigative reporter's right to be at the school event. "Mike Mason was out covering a public meeting, and they were upset that Mike was the reporter," said Ch. 28 news director Bill Berra, Mason's supervisor. "I don't know how to respond. We're out doing a story, and they're trying to make us the story."
Hart, the schools spokesman, said Mason is welcome to go to schools to do his reporting, but not in a way that is disruptive and flouts safety measures in place to protect students, staff and teachers. School officials have repeatedly warned Mason and Ch. 28 executives about his behavior during his visits to campus over the past year, Hart said.
"It was his refusal to leave (the meeting) when asked, not the fact that he went to the meeting," Hart said. "He was engaging in what the principal considered to be conduct that was disruptive. If he'd just come in and covered the meeting, we wouldn't have had an issue. But somebody taking out vials and petri dishes during a meeting with parents can be a little ominous in our current climate."
Westchase and district administrators say Mason arrived at the meeting in the school cafeteria and, as part of an apparent investigation into air quality, started swabbing window sills, moving vertical blinds and putting things into a vial as parents looked on. He also set a petri dish out on a table.
Area schools director Anthony Satchel later told a sheriff's deputy that the "presence and demeanor" of Mason and a cameraman "was quite distracting.
"Both men roamed about the building, and at one point I observed Mike Mason take a swab from the wall and place it in a test tube," Satchel told the deputy.
Principal Roseanne Miller told the deputy Mason was "being obnoxious during the meeting." Satchel and Miller asked Mason to leave several times, but he refused, according to the sheriff's report.
Ch. 28 aired a short segment about the school expansion meeting on its 11 p.m. broadcast that evening, Berra said.
The standoff between Mason and school administrators isn't the first. In December, school district attorney Tom Gonzalez wrote to Ch. 28 executive producer Aaron Wische with a warning that Mason and a camera operator had trespassed at Tampa Bay Elementary School during Mason's investigation into fire code violations in county schools.
According to the letter, Mason arrived at the school Dec. 18 and said he wanted to tour the campus and talk about the status of repairs to the fire alarm system. The principal told Mason she had no information about the repairs, but asked him to call Hart to schedule a tour.
"Unbeknownst to the principal, they proceeded to the rear of the school, entered the school grounds and proceeded to enter a school portable," Gonzalez wrote. Hart said Tampa police were called to the school, "but by the time they arrived, Mason was gone."
Hart said in February, Mason went to Plant City High to do more reporting on fire code violations. After a campus tour, he approached a teenage girl in the parking lot, Hart said, "and asked her if she wanted to watch a "secret' tape."
"She was alarmed," Hart said. "It was during the time of the Carla Brucia kidnapping. We're responsible for the kids when they're with us, and we don't want them frightened."
Mason referred all questions to Berra, his boss.
He is currently in a pretrial diversion program for first-time offenders, following his April arrest on eight counts of obtaining drugs from a physician by withholding information.
Bondi said if he completes the program, the charges will be dropped.
Staff researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report. Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at 813 226-3373 or svansickler@sptimes.com