Sauk Village, Illinois clerk speaks after fight with mayor during village board meeting
SAUK VILLAGE, Ill. (CBS) -- Earlier this week, a chaotic confrontation erupted between the clerk and the mayor of south suburban Sauk Village.
On Thursday, one of the parties involved—Sauk Village Clerk Marva Campbell-Pruitt—gave her side of the story.
It was the first time she spoke on the record since she let Mayor Derrick Burgess have an earful at a board of trustees meeting this past Tuesday night.
During the Tuesday night meeting, the clerk grabbed the mayor's gavel after she made several requests for the mayor to stop pointing it at her. Out of frustration, she yanked it out of his hand and threats were made.
"I personally extend my apology, because it's not typical of me," Campbell-Pruitt said.
Campbell-Pruitt said she was defending herself in the exchange. She admitted she physically touched Burgess and grabbed the gavel from him.
"I sure did," Campbell-Pruitt said. "I'll tell you if you throw something in my face in a threatening manner, and if I can, I'm going to get it away from you."
Video documents Campbell-Pruitt saying to the mayor, "I'm going to knock you upside your head if you keep pointing!"
Campbell-Pruitt said what cannot be heard in the video during the meeting were the words she said the mayor's wife yelled at her while she was giving her report.
"I was told to shut up," Campbell-Pruitt said. "I was called a bald-headed B."
She said that was why she turned to Burgess and demanded: "Get your wife! Get your wife!" to which the mayor replied, "Shut up!"
"How can you do something like that publicly to another individual—whether you like them or not?" Campbell-Pruitt sad. "Where's your humility, humanity? Where is your ethics?"
Mayor Burgess, who has not responded to CBS News Chicago's repeated requests for comment, and the clerk have had many disagreements in village board chambers. Pruitt said it has been ongoing since 2017.
"During that time, I ended up having to file a police report against him, because he got physical with me," Campbell-Pruitt said.
She said this week, her frustration reached a breaking point. Yet she insisted it does not represent her fully.
"I am aggressive to a degree and I'm very assertive to a great degree. But an angry Black woman—that's not me," Campbell-Pruitt said. "I may have said, 'I'd hit you upside the head if I could."
The comment is documented on the video of the village board meeting proceedings. But Campbell-Pruitt said it was not meant seriously.
"I wouldn't hit him," she said. "I'm not a violent individual."
The clerk contends she can't get records from the mayor, which is why the village trustees requested the office of the inspector general for the village to start a probe.
Right before the meeting on Tuesday, the mayor was served with an order to appear in court.
Campbell-Pruitt said Burgess has apologized for his part in the squabble, but she has not accepted the apology yet.
"I need him to not be punitive and harassing anymore," Campbell-Pruitt said. "If you're saying you respect me, respect me totally."
