Jury convicts fired teacher who pulled out gun during viral tirade over neighborhood flooding

BATON ROUGE – A teacher who lost her job after she was seen on video waving a bat and a firearm at a family that was driving through her flooded neighborhood was convicted Wednesday, more than two years after the tirade went viral. 

East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore told WBRZ that Bridgette Digerolamo, 41, was convicted on three counts of misdemeanor aggravated assault with a firearm. She previously faced felony charges in the case.

Digerolamo was first arrested in July 2020 after the video started circulating on social media. It showed her waving a bat and then pointing a handgun at the family’s car as they drove through the flooded street in front of her house.

At the time, sources told WBRZ that Digerolamo’s family had recently finished repairing damage from another flooding event, and she was irate about passing cars pushing water onto her property. 

Demetra Turner-Louis, who was in the car, said she and her family were just driving home.

“You don’t play with guns and threaten people,” Turner-Louis said after the encounter. “If we had a gun it could have been a different outcome. To witness my child screaming and seeing this, and I’m outside the car, I don’t know her state of mind. She could have shot me.”

The East Baton Rouge School System fired Digerolamo, who worked as a P.E. teacher, shortly after the incident. 

Digerolamo is scheduled for sentencing March 16.