Tiffany Henyard, the scandal-plagued mayor of Dolton, Illinois, was seen on video jumping into a chaotic brawl that broke out between her boyfriend and an activist who called her a “b—-” during a heated board meeting Tuesday night.
The fight happened during a Thornton Township Board of Trustees meeting, after activist Jedidiah Brown had some strong words for Henyard.
Brown referenced the findings of former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s investigation into Henyard, as a scathing report presented to the village board Monday night alleged a pattern of deception and mismanagement of funds by the mayor.
“You’ve been a half-a– mayor. But if you wanted to get up here and earn some respect, then you should have been able to respond to Lori Lightfoot’s report about credit cards. You want to talk about them not coming to work, but we’ve been hearing what you’ve been doing while you’ve been at work,” Brown said during the public comment section of the township meeting Tuesday. “And I’m going to give away the rest of my time because I think, on behalf of the Black Cookout Association, that we better take a vote … that we’re going to exchange your Black a– for Stephanie to be the newer member.… So all those against it say ‘nay,’ all those in favor say, ‘aye.’”
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“You gone, b—-,” Brown concluded.
The room quickly devolved into chaos, as bystander video showed Henyard’s boyfriend, Kamal Woods, and Brown throwing punches at one another in the back of the room. Others joined the fight as security tried to separate the crowd.
The video shows Henyard, who had been seated behind a table at the front of the room listening to the remarks, running over to join the melee in the back. Police officers soon arrived at the scene.
“I have never seen a politician jump in and fight like that – it was scary and horrible – it is an embarrassment,” one witness, Meghan Dudek, told WMAQ-TV.
“It should have never come to blows, and Tiffany should have never got involved,” another witness, Gerald Williams, added. “She jumped in. She hit her head on the table, so I don’t know. She might be injured.”
“It was one thing when the guys were fighting, but when she jumped in it, I was taken aback. I was floored,” a third witness, Alicia Nichole, told WLS-TV.
It is unclear from the video whether Henyard was actively participating in the fight or trying to break it up.
“In the face of endless false accusations and outright lies about Mayor Henyard that are being trafficked on social media by her political enemies, it is unsurprising that violence erupted,” Henyard’s attorney, Beau B. Brindley, said in a statement obtained by Fox News. “In the social media age, unchecked falsehoods lead to misplaced tension and aggression. This episode shows that the campaign of false information about the mayor puts her and others in danger.”
Before it turned violent, the meeting had already grown tense as the board voted to place Woods and another man, William Moore, on leave without pay and hire auditors to investigate their management of the township’s at-risk youth program.
Henyard is also the supervisor of Thornton Township in south Chicago but recently lost a Democratic primary for that role to Illinois State. Sen. Napoleon Harris, who will advance to the April general election with party support.
Henyard claimed there was “voter suppression,” but lost her bid to be added back on to the ballot.
Dolton Park District Executive Director Stephanie Wiedeman was recently elected to fill a vacant seat on the Thornton Township Board of Trustees. Her election ended a tense political standoff and local government shutdown.
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With Wiedeman on the board, the township was able to end the shutdown by approving its tax levy ordinance and insurance, WLS reported.
Lightfoot, who was hired to investigate the Dolton mayor last summer, found that Henyard and her administration engaged in a “concerted, systematic effort” since at least 2021 “to hide the true financial condition of the Village of Dolton from the trustees and from members of the public.” In presenting her findings to the village board Monday night, Lightfoot revealed the Village of Dolton had received some $3 million in payments from the American Rescue Plan, hundreds of thousands of which went missing without receipts. Henyard failed to appoint an official to track how the funds were spent, as required by the Treasury Department, Lightfoot’s report says.
The city’s credit card spending also spiked to $779,638 in 2023, with little to no tracking.
“Many of the credit card expenditures have no accompanying receipt, and the statements alone provide limited information about the purchases,” the report says, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
City credit cards were also used to pay for large trips to Las Vegas in both 2022 and 2023, and the report claims, “There is no evidence that any business development opportunities came to the village as a result of either of these two trips.”
Tuesday’s fight comes days after Henyard was also held in contempt of court for allegedly stonewalling liquor licenses for months.
Fox News’ Patrick McGovern and Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
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