An officer used ‘deadly force’ on a South Jersey mom who brought her daughter tampons, lawsuit says
Nadia Baxter, a South Jersey mother, alleges that a Monroe Township officer assaulted her in the foyer at Williamstown High School in 2024. Her lawsuit says there hasn't been any accountability since.
Two years after a South Jersey mother was arrested on charges of assaulting a police officer at her daughter’s high school, Nadia Baxter is telling her side of the story in a federal lawsuit.
Baxter arrived at Williamstown High School in Gloucester County that October 2024 day to deliver menstrual-hygiene products for her daughter. In the school’s lobby, a Monroe Township police officer grabbed her by the neck, shoved her to the ground, and held her in a chokehold, according to the complaint.
Despite surveillance footage that captured the incident, the suit says, Baxter and her daughter paid a steep price, while Michael Marsh, the school resource officer, didn’t face consequences.
Lara DiFabrizio, the attorney representing Baxter, said it’s unacceptable no one was held accountable.
“She didn’t threaten him, she didn’t argue with him, she was just trying to get her daughter,” DiFabrizio said. “He assaulted her … there is a video that shows it.”
Baxter was initially charged with assault and resisting arrest, and later pleaded guilty to violating a municipal general-nuisance ordinance. The daughter, a senior at the time, was suspended for seven weeks and later removed from the basketball team and stripped of her position as president of the school’s African American Cultural Society, the complaint says.
Meanwhile, an investigation by Monroe Township Police Department’s Internal Affairs unit “exonerated” Marsh, the suit says.
The lawsuit was filed last week in the U.S. District Court of New Jersey and names Marsh, Monroe Township and its police department, the school board, and school principal as defendants.
Marsh, who still works as a school resource officer at Williamstown High, did not return requests for comment, nor did officials at Williamstown High School and Monroe Township School District. Monroe Township’s business administrator and Donald Darcangelo, the lieutenant who supervises school resource officers, declined to comment.
Kevin Bielski, a captain with the police department, said Monroe police typically don’t comment on ongoing lawsuits. But Bielski defended Marsh’s character and referred to the department’s social media account for examples.
“His reputation with the parents, students, and staff speaks for itself,” Bielski wrote in an email.
In March, Marsh was named the department’s officer of the month.
‘Seeking accountability’
Baxter arrived at Williamstown High School on Oct. 11, 2024, to deliver menstrual-hygiene products to her daughter, the suit says. School staff did not allow Baxter to drop off the tampons — the school’s handbook requires outside drop-offs to be placed in a cabinet outside the main entrance — so she asked to take her daughter home instead, according to the complaint.
As the daughter approached the door, the suit says, Marsh shut the door and blocked it. When Baxter signaled to her daughter through a window to come out, Marsh told the mother to step back, the complaint said.
The lawsuit says Marsh physically escalated the altercation after he and Baxter had exchanged words.
He grabbed Baxter’s arm and then her neck, shoving her backward into chairs in the lobby, the complaint says. A “physical struggle” between Marsh and Baxter ensued, the suit says, during which the officer held the mother in a chokehold twice.
School staff also “physically restrained” Baxter’s daughter, according to the complaint. The daughter, who had maintained straight A’s as a senior, was suspended for “assaulting staff members,” the suit says.
Roughly a month later, the surveillance footage prompted the Monroe Township Board of Education to allow the daughter to return to school. She was placed on probation and barred from athletic and other extracurricular activities.
After prosecutors reviewed the footage in February 2026, they offered Baxter a deal to plea guilty to the nuisance violation. The lawsuit says Baxter “reluctantly” accepted, fearing the impact of the charges on her career.
Days after the incident, Baxter filed an internal affairs complaint against Marsh. Investigators found in April 2025 that the “alleged incident did occur,” according to the complaint, but Marsh “didn’t violate rules, regulations, standard operating procedures, directives or training.”
The federal lawsuit contends Marsh used deadly force when he held Baxter in a chokehold. It accuses police of malicious prosecution, false arrest, and fabrication of evidence.
After the 2024 incident, the officer reported his use of force to the state as a “take down” in response to a “disturbance.” The report called Baxter a “threatening assailant.” The incident is the only time Marsh has reported using force in Monroe Township.
On the day of the arrests, Monroe Township Police released a statement that Marsh had “received injuries to his face and hands” and said the department has “zero tolerance for this type of behavior in our schools, including parents and juveniles.”
DiFabrizio said that the security footage, which The Inquirer did not independently review, dispels any notion that Baxter was the aggressor or a threat to Marsh.
The incident, in which school officials failed to intervene, took place in front of members of the student body, according to the suit, and was covered by local media. The lawsuit calls the public observation of the incident “humiliating.”
After the daughter’s graduation, the mother moved out of Monroe Township, DiFabrizio said. The daughter is now a college sophomore and back to getting straight A’s, according to the attorney.
“They are still having a difficult time, but the daughter is doing better,” DiFabrizio said. “We are seeking accountability.”
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