The video below has caused a public outcry after a South Carolina school resource officer identified as Richland County Sheriff’s Department Senior Deputy Ben Fields is shown tossing a female high school student to the floor and dragging her from a classroom after she refused to get up and leave with him. Fields has been placed on paid administrative leave.
Fields, shown right from a Twitter photo, was reportedly called in because the student would not get off her cellphone or leave the class as instructed. The 15-second video shows Fields asking the student “Are You Coming With Me or am I Going to Make You? Come on. I’m going to get you up.” What follows is the scuffle where the student ends up on the floor and being pulled by Fields. Fields is heard saying “I’ll put you in jail next.”
The site Heavy has reported that Fields in the subject of a lawsuit alleging violations of the civil rights of a student at Spring Valley High School. The student, Ashton James Reese, was expelled in 2013 from the high school for “unlawful assembly of gang activity and assault and battery” and was also accused of participating in a “gang related” fight in a Walmart parking lot near the school. In the lawsuit, he is accused of “recklessly target[ing] African-American students with allegations of gang membership and criminal gang activity.”
The Columbia mayor has denounced Fields and said “We cannot and will not accept this kind of behavior from any law enforcement officer and I firmly believe that we need an independent investigation to get to the bottom of this incident and see that justice is done.”
Given that this was all about cellphone use, is there any justification for this level of force in your view?
The inner cities are burning. Drugs, alcohol, illegitimacy rates of 74%, murder, rape, illiteracy, and the MSM and liberals focus on this. What enabling and disrespect for what black people could achieve if given some tough love. The black community need a leader. Obama is embarrassed by poor, black people. Sharpton is a racial pimp who has gotten more WH visits than anyone so he can “deal” w/ race while Obama golfs w/ white billionaires. Black politicians and Dems have a MONOPOLY in big cities and they are cities of no hope and abject despair. These politicians get rich while their citizens live in squalor. But, it’s all about this video. It is sickening.
Paul.C. Schulte…..They were no cell phones when I was in school, but our abaci were prohibited during math tests.😊
Ah, good to know, Paul. They should teach classes on phone etiquette. Turn it off or switch it to silent and let it go to voicemail or excuse yourself and leave the room.
It just occurred to me, hardly any of these kids talk on the phone anymore; they’re always texting. That makes this girl a bit unusual.
Hall – the school probably has a NO CELL PHONE USE IN THE CLASSROOM rule in the student handbook. And that is reinforced by the teacher. I always did. First day of the semester I went over the class rules and the use of cell phones was on it.
The texting is a different problem. You have to watch out for them texting, especially during tests. They are sneaky little devils.
How about focusing on some systemic problems. Detroit Public Schools 93% of students NOT proficient in reading, 96% not proficient in math. I blame Bush.
Schlte: My apologies, I did not see your response or your comment at 9:09. I am truly curious, because I’m not sure how I would’ve handled it
Black “folk.” We got more than enough hand wringing white women.
WE NEED SOME BLACKOLK HE FRE!!
Schulte: IOW you don’t know how you would’ve handled this situation. Thank you
Hall – students hate silence. If you stand by the girl with you hand out for the phone, she will either give it to you or the other students will shame her into giving it to you. I used to end up with a couple of phones a day. The deal was they could have them back at the end of the day. Always put them in the same drawer of my desk in case I got called from my room.
The other thing is knowing your students. It appears her mother just died and she had been put in foster care so she was probably acting out as well. You want to make sure it isn’t a battle between the two of you, just an agreement.
Obviously those ACLU barristers NEVER venture into the ‘hood. They would see whuppin’ like this many times a day. Indeed, there is a cultural problem white guilt liberals face. This is amusing as hell to see and read.
VIDEO: ACLU take on the #AssaultatSpringValleyHigh
https://youtu.be/N5U4S6_D9ms
LOL! Some white women here are CLUELESS @ how black folk handle their children. These white women spend no time w/ black folk and are afraid to venture into their neighborhoods. Because, you don’t even need to know black people. Just go into an inner city supermarket and see what a mother does to her child if he/she acts out. I have said here many times, there is a cultural difference between how black parents and white parents discipline their kids and many liberals are clueless because they don’t socialize w/ black folk or go into their neighborhoods. I have seen this type of behavior you see the cop doing many times by black mothers. Is it OK? I am worldly enough to not be judgmental. It puts clueless liberals between a rock and a hard place. I laughed when there was the video of the big mother in Baltimore whuppin’ he son for being part of the looting thugs and liberals didn’t know whether to defecate or go blind.
Hell, if you are too afraid to go into the inner city, watch some black comics like Chris Rock, Steve Harvey, or others. They’ll tell you about “gettin’ whupped.” And, they’ll tell you “gettin’ whupped” saved their lives.
https://youtu.be/N5U4S6_D9ms
https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-south-carolina-comment-video-violence-against-student-school-resource-officer
October 27, 2015
CHARLESTON – Cell phone videos surfaced on social media today of a school resource officer at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina, using excessive force on a female student who was sitting at her desk in a classroom. The videos show her being thrown to the floor and dragged: http://www.wistv.com/story/30353999/video-shows-confrontation-between-spring-valley-student-and-school-resource-officer.
Victoria Middleton, Executive Director of the ACLU of South Carolina, had this comment:
“There is no justification whatsoever for treating a child like this. Regardless of the reason for the officer’s actions, such egregious use of force — against young people who are sitting in their classrooms — is outrageous. School should be a place to learn and grow, not a place to be brutalized.
“We must take action to address the criminalization of children in South Carolina, especially at school.”
Schulte: As a teacher, how would you have handled this situation?
Hall – My answer is at 9:09 am. It was after that that I found out that the teacher was a seasoned teacher and called the administration.
If a parent would’ve handled their kid this way and someone saw it they would be charged with child abuse.
Obstinate kids have been around for a lot of years. Blame the adults, not the child. There are ways of effectively dealing with obstinate kids and trying to muscle them into submission isn’t one of them.
It will be interesting to see if the school is also sued by the plaintiff(s).
If I were a teacher or administrator, I’d consider a policy of filming the interactions with a disruptive or non-compliant student if there was any possiblilty of an escalation, especially if there is a possibility of forcibly removing the student.
While extended filming may show premature and/or excessive action against the student, it may also serve to show the student’s actions as something less than
“Ghandi-esque” non-compliance.
Great comments Darren and anon and, amazingly, I agree with Nick. The taxpayers shouldn’t foot the cost of this girl’s obstinance.
The agency’s training unit determined from the videos that Fields did not follow proper training and procedure, the sheriff said.
“When you make an arrest of someone who does not have a weapon, you never let go of the subject. When he threw her across the room, he let go of her. That’s what violates our policy,” Lott said.
“She wasn’t a danger at that point; she was just being non-compliant and disrespectful. You try to de-escalate a situation. And when you do have to put your hands on someone, there are other techniques we use.” -from the following article
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-south-carolina-officer-tosses-student-video-20151028-story.html
Excerpt:
The sheriff called his actions “unacceptable,” and said videos recorded by her classmates show the girl posed no danger to anyone.
“What he should not have done is throw the student,” Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said. “Police officers make mistakes too. They’re human and they need to be held accountable, and that’s what we’ve done with Deputy Ben Fields.”
Civil rights groups praised the swift action against Fields, a veteran school resource officer and football coach at Spring Valley High School. Outrage spread quickly after videos of the white officer arresting the black teenager on Monday appeared on the Internet.
Lott thanked the FBI for investigating whether civil rights were violated, and school officials for promising to review how police are used for discipline.
“They need to understand that when they call us, we’re going to take a law enforcement action,” Lott said. “Maybe that ought to have been something handled by the school without ever calling the deputy.”
The sheriff also had stern words for the student who started the confrontation by refusing to hand over her cellphone after her math teacher saw her texting in class — a violation of school policy.
Both she and another student who verbally challenged the officer’s actions during the arrest still face misdemeanor charges of disturbing schools, punishable by up to a $1,000 fine or 90 days in jail, Lott said, although in most cases, judges impose alternative sentences that keep students out of jail.
“The student was not allowing the teacher to teach and not allowing the students to learn. She was very disrespectful and she started this whole incident,” Lott said. “It doesn’t justify his actions. But again, she needs to be held responsible for what she did.”
Lott also praised the students whose videos put such an intense spotlight on his deputy’s actions.
“I can’t fix problems if I don’t know about it,” Lott said. “I would say that every citizen with a camera, if they see something that’s going on that disturbs them, they should film it. Our citizens should police us.”
Lott said he wouldn’t describe Fields as remorseful, but rather sorry it all happened.
Local advocates express outrage over arrest of South Carolina student
The violent takedown and dragout in a South Carolina classroom sparked not only a heated school board meeting, it has launched a federal investigation. Oct. 28, 2015. (CBS Chicago)
The agency’s training unit determined from the videos that Fields did not follow proper training and procedure, the sheriff said.
“When you make an arrest of someone who does not have a weapon, you never let go of the subject. When he threw her across the room, he let go of her. That’s what violates our policy,” Lott said.
“She wasn’t a danger at that point; she was just being non-compliant and disrespectful. You try to de-escalate a situation. And when you do have to put your hands on someone, there are other techniques we use.”
anon – I would love to see the training video on removing a recalcitrant teen-age girl from a school desk. Actually, I would like to see the sheriff do it.
Darren, I think you need to take more time to fully analyze the video and the sequence of events. The swinging at the officer took place before the desk ever started to rotate.
Darren, Great comment. Of course the dept. rushed to judgment. As you said, maybe this guy should have been fired, but 48 hours is way too swift. It will merely give this cop ammo in the inevitable lawsuit he’ll file for wrongful termination. And, this rush to judgment will be a large hammer in a wrongful termination lawsuit. I’ve worked a good number of employment cases, working for both plaintiff and defense. One of the biggest reasons employers end up paying big bucks is for not following their own policies and procedures regarding termination. So, good chance the taxpayers will be paying 5-6 figures to this girl, and the same to the cop for wrongful termination. A real cluster coitus that the hard working taxpayers will be forced to pay!