A North Carolina middle school choir singing the National Anthem at the 9/11 Memorial in New York City was shut down by two security guards, according to a report.
The reason? It could be considered a public demonstration.
The New York Post reported that the guards told music teacher Martha Brown that the group needed a permit to sing.
"Some of the students were very upset and confused. I told the children, ‘This is a place where you need to respect authority even if you don’t understand it,’" Brown said.
The Waynesville Middle School choir was wrapping up their trip to New York City with a visit to the memorial at the World Trade Center, where both skyscrapers were destroyed after hijacked planes flew into them in a carefully planned terrorist attack.
A mother with the group filmed the interaction and posted it on Facebook. The video of their interrupted rendition of the National Anthem has received more than 300,000 views as of this publishing.
The choir had seen the Broadway musical "The Lion King" and sung at Saint John the Divine Cathedral. and Brown wanted to add a bit of history to the whirlwind trip.
Brown said that the choir signing was their way of paying their respects and the guards could have waited just another 30 seconds for them to finish.
A spokeswoman for the memorial said that the situation was not handled properly and that the staff would be working with security to ensure that the situation would not happen again to future student performances.
It is unclear if the security guard was disciplined.