Updated at 4:49 p.m. ET: A South Carolina mother says she was humiliated when she was arrested during her daughter's high school graduation last weekend in Florence, S.C., for cheering too loudly.

But police say Shannon Cooper's shouting was nothing short of disorderly conduct.

"I am still living in shock," Cooper told msnbc.com. "It all seems like a bad dream, a nightmare of what was to be one of the happiest days of our lives. I cheered for my baby and I got the cuffs."

Cooper said she was whooping it up when her 18-year-old daughter, Christin Iesha Cooper, walked across the stage to get her diploma from South Florence High School on June 2.

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"I am a proud mom," said Cooper, a beautician from Florence. "And as soon as they said 'Christin' I stood up, started praising, woohooing and cheering it up for my baby. I was like 'Go baby! You did it'."

Florence Police Chief Anson Shells said people attending the ceremony had been warned to behave during commencement ceremonies. If they failed to do so, they would be escorted out, he said.

“The school district made an announcement and sent out letters to all of the parents for everyone to be as orderly as they can during the ceremony and so on and so forth,” Shells told msnbc.com.  “That was the rule.”

Cooper doesn't think she did anything wrong. She said police arrested her as she made her way down the stairs and onto the auditorium's main floor. She said officers walked her across the Florence Civic Center, where the graduation ceremony was being held, in full view of everyone.

"The police officer pointed his finger at me and said 'Stop right here. The lady right there in white, she's going to jail'," Cooper said. "The whole time I was thinking in my mind 'Are you all serious? You for real?' I didn't say anything. I was shocked."

Cooper was charged with disorderly conduct and booked in Florence County Detention Center, where she stayed for several hours until posting a $225 bond, according to WPDE-TV, an ABC affiliate in Myrtle Beach, S.C.  "I didn't do any more than the others did. Which I feel like no one should have gone to jail," she said.

Cooper's daughter told WPDE-TV she didn’t know what had happened to her mom until her friends filled her in. "They're locking your momma up for cheering -- and I was like that isn't right because other people were cheering and they didn't lock them up," she said.

Shells told msnbc.com two others were arrested during the commencement service.

“They were disruptive enough that officers felt they had to be removed and that they had violated the law,” Shells said.

Shells said 30 officers were stationed at the convention center that evening to monitor a crowd of 9,000 people. South Florence High School had 407 students graduating that night, he said.

“According to the report, she was disruptive during the ceremony and ceremonies are considered solemn occasions,” Shells said. “Everybody wants to hear their child’s name called and everyone was asked to be respectful and to be quiet.”

Cooper said the family celebrated her daughter's special day on Sunday with a barbecue. She said she wants to put the day behind her, but finds it difficult at the moment.

Said Cooper: "Disorderly conduct? What's the disorderly conduct? How was I so disorderly you know any different from just a happy parent? It was a lot of hard work to get my baby to this point, you know? I wanted to celebrate. I wanted to shout out my joy."

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A teenage McDonald’s employee has been charged with unlawful and malicious tampering with food after customers found phlegm in their tea, police in South Carolina said.

Deputies in Greenville County said a mother and her daughter ordered sweet tea from the McDonald’s in Simpsonville on Saturday.

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After getting the tea they noticed it was not sweet, according to deputies. After returning the drinks, the customers realized that the order was still not correct, deputies said.

Deputies said rather than going back to the restaurant, the victims went home to add their own sweetener. They said when they opened the tops they noticed a large deposit of phlegm was found floating in both drinks.

Read the full story at WYFF4.com

Deputies said Marvin D. Washington Jr., 19, was arrested and charged with unlawful and malicious tampering with food.

According to an arrest warrant, Washington was seen on video leaning his face down to the drinks before filling them with tea.

John Kennedy, owner/operator of that McDonald's outlet, released a statement asking people not to rush to judgment.

"Nothing is more important to me than the safety and wellbeing of my customers. I want to assure my customers that my restaurant has the most stringent food safety and quality standards and I caution anyone from reaching a conclusion without the facts," he said.

“As this is a pending police matter, it would be inappropriate to discuss further and, as such, any additional questions can be directed to the police department," he added.

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CHARLESTON, South Carolina -- A former South Carolina school principal and youth coach was indicted Tuesday on 22 counts of sexually molesting boys, including some at The Citadel military college summer camp, five years after the college investigated the man but took no action.

The indictment was the latest of a string of sex abuse accusations involving university or youth coaches across the country since November.

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A grand jury indicted Louis "Skip" ReVille for molesting and showing obscene materials to 15 boys in Charleston County, South Carolina, Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson announced on Tuesday.

The 22 counts include criminal sexual conduct with a child, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years, lewd acts on a child and disseminating obscene material.

NBC station WCBD-TV reported that the boys claimed they were molested since 2002 while they were between the ages of 11 and 16 years old.

'Intense investigation'
ReVille was arrested last October on child sex charges in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina where he was a school principal. He had also worked as a children's sports coach at several schools and community recreation centers, police said.

"As you can see with the number of victims that were involved, the number of activities that were involved, this has been an intense investigation," Wilson said at a news conference.

ReVille's lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to Charleston's local Post and Courier newspaper, Reville is a married father of three.

ReVille's case first drew national attention when The Citadel announced shortly after the Penn State University sex abuse scandal erupted in November, that it had erred in failing to tell police about the allegations against ReVille in 2007.

According to WCBD the trials are expected to start by the end of June this year.

Among other sex abuse cases, a grand jury in November indicted a former Penn State football coach for serial sexual abuse of boys. A former Syracuse University basketball coach was accused of sexually abusing ballboys, and the former president of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) was accused of abusing youth basketball players years ago.

Prosecutors: Sandusky's alleged victims as young as 8

All of the coaches have declared their innocence.

In 2007, a former Citadel summer camper said that five years earlier, when he was 14, ReVille invited him and another camper to his room, showed them pornography on his computer, and they masturbated.

ReVille, a graduate of The Citadel, worked as a counselor at the school's camp for three summers between 2001 and 2003.

The Citadel released documents on its internal investigation and the college's president expressed regret that school officials had not reported the allegations to police.

"I am saddened and sickened that someone so close has betrayed our trust," Citadel President John W. Rosa told a news conference in November.

Military college 'sorry' about sex abuse inaction

Wilson said Tuesday that The Citadel had no legal obligation to report the suspected inappropriate behavior and that its officials would not be charged with failure to report it.

"The Citadel is encouraged by the progress that's been made in the investigation and it will continue to cooperate completely in any ongoing investigation," Dawes Cooke, attorney for the college, said on Tuesday.

In 2006, the school paid a $3.8 million judgment in a civil suit filed by five former campers who said they were sexually assaulted by Marine officer and camp counselor Michael Arpaio. Arpaio was court-martialed for the crimes by the U.S. Marine Corps and served time in Charleston's Navy Brig.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Authorities say South Carolina Hospitality Association president Tom Sponseller killed himself in the parking garage of his office building.

Columbia Police Chief Randy Scott said Sponseller's body was found around 10:45 a.m. Tuesday in a room in the garage, which had been searched three times in the 10 days since the 61-year-old lobbyist was reported missing.

Scott says a note found Tuesday in Sponseller's office referred to a federal investigation into the association's finances, but Scott would not give additional details.

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Scott says Sponseller was behind two locked doors in a room where people frequently took smoke breaks. Officers hadn't had the keys for the room before Tuesday. Sponseller was reported missing Feb. 18.

Richland County Coroner Gary Watts says it appears Sponseller shot himself in the head.

On Monday, federal officials confirmed to The Associated Press that they were investigating the disappearance of several hundred thousand dollars from the group, which lobbies for South Carolina's $14 billion tourism industry.

U.S. Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Michael Williams said agents began looking into the group's books several months ago but Sponseller had not been investigated specifically.

Instead, Williams said, agents were focusing on Rachel Duncan, who has served as an accounting director for the association. There was no answer Tuesday at a number listed for Duncan. Her attorney has declined to comment on the investigation but said Duncan had been cooperating with the investigation into Sponseller's disappearance.

Court records show Duncan is fighting foreclosure on a Lexington County property and in October was ordered by a judge to pay a bank nearly $4,000.

Rick Erwin, the association's interim director, has hired an accounting firm to do an audit of its finances to assure the association's 2,000 members that their financial contributions are secure in Sponseller's absence, according to Bob McAlister, a consultant for the group.

Sponseller, head of the association for more than 20 years, was a well-known fixture at the Statehouse representing the tourism industry. On Tuesday, House lawmakers held a moment of silence after learning of his death.

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Potlucks have a purpose beyond sharing food for thousands of members of Dining for Women. 

"Basically a group of people get together to share a meal and learn about a grassroots non-profit organization," said Marsha Wallace, president and founder of the Greenville, S.C.-based organization that started with 20 women at one dinner about a decade ago and now counts 8,000 members in chapters across 38 states.

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The average donation at a monthly potluck is $32, about each woman's "dining out" cost.

"When everybody does that it turns into $42,000," member Cari Class told NBC News.

The money combined from all the chapters goes to a different charity every month to help women and their families, which also empowers the women who give, members say.

They've helped in a wide variety of ways, such as saving girls from sex slavery in Nepal, donating sterile birth kits in Tibet, supporting an embroidery business in Afghanistan and sponsoring a girls school in Kenya.

Dining for Women's website notes that the group gives only to women and girls internationally because 75 percent of the world's 1.3 billion people living in extreme poverty are women and children who live in developing nations. The website also gives information about starting new chapters and how programs are selected to receive donations.

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In a state that's home to a university whose mascot is a gamecock, a group of South Carolinians arrested in a major cockfighting case want an appeals court to throw out their federal convictions. They argue that the federal government has no business regulating bird fights within state borders.

In a case closely watched by animal-rights activists, a three-judge U.S. appeals court in Richmond, Va., on Tuesday heard arguments on whether federal prosecutors overstepped their authority in trying six people in connection with Lexington County cockfights in 2008.

The four men and two women were found guilty at a federal court trial in May 2010 of violating animal welfare laws  -- the same laws that were used to prosecute star NFL quarterback Michael Vick and send him to federal prison in 2007 for organizing dogfights at his Virginia home.

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During the South Carolina trial, prosecutors showed video secretly shot by a state Department of Natural Resources agent who went undercover to infiltrate the cockfights at an arena in the rural Lexington County town of Swansea.

The federal government brought in witnesses from out of state -- and even flew in one witness from England -- to prove their case that the defendants were involved in interstate commerce -- which would give the federal government jurisdiction.

The six are appealing their convictions, and the outcome could also affect several others who pleaded guilty and didn’t go to trial.

Rauch Wise, an attorney for the defendants, says the federal government should not be in the business of regulating what essentially is a state matter.

In South Carolina, cockfighting is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail, though many violators often get off with a fine. Under the federal law, violators face up to five years in prison, Wise noted.

The defendants got sentences ranging from three years probation to 21 months in prison.

“Congress does not have right to prohibit burglary simply because someone steals a TV that was made out of state,” Wise told msnbc.com in a telephone interview Tuesday after arguing the case before the appellate panel. “Those are state matters reserved to the state and should be handled by state.

“They’ve taken laws in various states that citizens in those states have passed and in essence are saying, ‘you’re not being tough enough.’”

In an accompanying court filing, Wise argued the case did not involve interstate commerce. "Under the theory used by the Government in this case, Congress would have the power to make littering in a state a (federal) crime."

Nathan Williams, the assistant U.S. attorney who argued for the government, said the federal law prohibiting animal fighting was a proper exercise of congressional power under the Interstate Commerce Clause.

In court documents, the government outlines several reasons why the case involved “interstate commerce.” Prosecutors noted that several items, including leg bands, call slips for recordkeeping, vitamins, a syringe and a scale, were shipped from outside South Carolina to people present at the cockfights.

Citing a previous ruling in another animal-fighting case, Williams argued:

“Whether or not the knives, gaffs or other instrumentalities themselves substantially affect interstate commerce is not the relevant question. The fact that these instruments are used in an animal fighting venture that affects interstate commerce is sufficient to permit Congress to criminalize the selling, buying, transporting or delivering of them pursuant to its power under the Commerce Clause.”

Cockfighting is a centuries-old blood sport in which two or more specially bred roosters are placed in an enclosed pit to fight, often to the death. The University of South Carolina’s men’s sports teams have traditionally been called the Fighting Gamecocks.

• Watch Humane Society of the United States video on cockfighting in South Carolina

The Humane Society of the United States is trying to make cockfighting a felony in all 50 states. John Goodwin, director of animal cruelty policy for the organization, who attended the appeals hearing, says it’s clear that the South Carolina case stretched beyond state borders.

“This is not just a matter of two chickens pecking each other in the back of some farmyard. These are large-scale events that affect interstate commerce in a pretty significant way,” he told msnbc.com

Goodwin said there have been about a dozen prosecutions under the federal Animal Welfare Act in the past seven or eight years, at least half of which involved cockfighting. He couldn’t recall any previous cases that reached a federal appeals court.

“Hopefully he judges will agree that the  law that was used to prosecute Michal Vick is a good law that would stand,” Goodwin said.

Wise said he expects a ruling from the appellate panel within 90 days.

“The significance of this case is what limit there is on the power of Congress to essentially regulate what is a state matter, cockfighting,” he said.

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MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C.- A woman who failed to pay a $480 fine for having a messy yard was sentenced to 10 days in jail, but came home a few days early on Thursday to find an overwhelming amount of support from strangers in her community.

Linda Ruggles, a 53-year-old Mount Pleasant, S.C., resident, is a photographer whose business tanked during the recession, The Associated Press reported. She was fined in 2010 after neighbors complained about the debris outside her home.

But when Ruggles' story was published earlier this week in the Charleston Post and Courier, she received some help from unexpected sources.

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Ruggles' problems began in 2008, when plans to repair her home stalled and the economy soured. Unopened packages of shingles have sat on her roof for three years, The Post and Courier reported, and she's been collecting scrap metal and other items in her driveway that she hopes to sell to help pay her bills.

The town cited Ruggles for a "clean lot violation" in December 2010 after neighbors complained, saying her mess was driving down their property values.

A municipal judge ordered Ruggles to pay the fine or go to jail for 10 days. Officials say she didn’t pay the fine within 90 days and then ignored court appearances and warnings from the town. After a year of trying to resolve the situation, Ruggles was arrested on Jan. 5.

"We went well beyond what we were required to do," Police Chief Harry Sewell, who told The Post and Courier he even knocked on her door personally in the hopes of finding a solution, said. "We really did take a compassionate approach."

Ruggles told police she couldn't pay the $480 fine because she was using every cent she earned to prevent her home from going into foreclosure. According to The Post and Courier, she has sold blood and even volunteered for medical experiments to keep her home.

Some help from strangers
Six days into her jail sentence, however, she was released. Police told The Post and Courier they shaved a few days off of her sentence.

When she came home, Ruggles' messy yard was still there, but many of her problems were about to be alleviated.

A contractor said he would shingle her leaky roof. Landscapers offered to clean up the yard. A realty group wanted to help with other home repairs. All for free.

Others told The Post and Courier they wanted to help with financial donations.

Ruggles, who The Post and Courier reported was happy to learn she also hadn't been fired from her part-time job at a local supermarket while she was in jail, told the newspaper, “I’m really overwhelmed. I’m so thankful and appreciative people want to help.”

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