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 class was probably 50 minutes or so. It was high school. The disruption wasn’t all day. The cop and the teacher/or whoever, could’ve dragged her desk out into the hallway as someone suggested, then waited for her to get up out of it. She probably would’ve felt embarrassed sitting out in the hallway by herself and got up, then she could’ve been escorted out of the building, or to the Principal’s office and her parent/ parents/ or grandmother called to come get her, or she could sit in the office all day, then suspended. She wasn’t aggressive or violent to the cop, or to the teacher according to current reporting.
There is a legitimate argument about having police in schools. However, you cannot make the argument that cops should not be in schools UNTIL you have been to inner city schools. They are chaotic. I have often thought we should have programs that encourage liberal white people, w/ no contact w/ black people except for their maids, to visit inner city neighborhoods and schools.
My suggestion is that they have several great big super soakers or fire hose with really really cold water and squirt the hell out of her until she gets up and lets everyone else get on with their business.
Then expel her from school and let her sink to the bottom of the scum pond where she obviously desires to be.
The problem here is that in America now it has become routine to treat disobedient children as criminals. Some schools even seem to have school police. That’s just a terrible idea.
For those who think schools need police, may I ask you what you think America is doing right here and nearly every other civilised country is doing wrong? Why are you doing this, for pity’s sake? Has America lost its collective marbles?
“If they had their wish of having students carrying guns…”
Dezza, awesome straw man argument.
You really whacked that one good.
If it weren’t for another student breaking the rules and using his/her cellphone in class we wouldn’t have this incident recorded. Where are all the NRA lovers? If they had their wish of having students carrying guns in the classroom this could have ended dramatically different. The student would be justified in feeling threatened. No, their too busy denigrating the black girl and brushing off this officer’s aggregious over reaction to the situation. A good officer possesses the skill to defuse a non-threatening, minor incident like this without using violence as a knee jerk reaction to a non compliant person. This guy’s a senior deputy not some rookie…although he deserves to be demoted and kept away from children.
@Tyger.
Excellent point about police refusal to become involved.
Here you have a recalcitrant student who refuses to comply.
Basically, she has shut down that classroom for the day because no one is allowed to do anything to her.
Excellence in public schools.
KCFleming – I think the whole situation was handled wrongly. The teacher doesn’t have classroom control. You don’t send the police for a cell phone user. You don’t cuff a cell phone user, you walk them out. However, there might be some history there.
The student was wrong. The teacher probably did what she was told to do. The school was wrong to send the resource office. The student was wrong again not to obey the lawful order of the officer. And I have knocked over classroom seats getting out of them. So, I think it looks worse than it is.
One of these days, the police are going to say “Nope, we’re not getting involved,” when a situation like this arises. Then the schools will get to see what real violence is. What might have happened if the principal of the school, or the Mayor, had tried to intervene and get the student to comply? Same struggle? Or, would they have just shrugged their shoulders and walked away from the cell-phone user. How much force is reasonable when a student does not comply with rules and teacher directives?
Steve Fleischer
1, October 27, 2015 at 9:11 am
She could have been arrested for any number of violations – placed in handcuffs and removed.
I think the cop was too violent, but in truth what could be done? For example the statement above is what the cop tried to do. He wanted her to stand up so he could put the cuffs on, and she refused. He tried to do it without her consent and we don’t like the result.
How do you make someone go quietly and safely when they refuse to do so? It seems most people here are criticizing the cop but are ignorant the resultant outcome which allows any student to disrupt class as though that circumstance doesn’t need to be dealt with.
T. Hall exhibits the usual leftist racism, because they believe blacks cannot be expected to behave appropriately.
In contrast, I believe that all people can learn to control their behavior.
Why you are comfortable with your brand of racism is unexplained.
“This is the right-wing government in action.”
Hilarious.
here’s your right wing Mayor and the City Council.
http://www.columbiasc.net/depts/city-council/council_group_photo.jpg
I thought the cop did just fine. Disrupt the class, disobey everything, smart A**, and pay the price. What world are kids growing up in these days? Back in the day just run your mouth foolishly and get a fat lip at a minimum…a body slam if you kept on yapping. And by your peers long before any cops showed up. What changed? [Never mind, I know what changed…that was rhetorical]
Aridog – remember those chalkboard erasers flying through the air at unruly students. You really had to stay awake in some classes, just for your own safety.
Like myself, DavidM uses his REAL NAME and is easily identifiable. It is laughable for him to be called out by someone who constantly changes aliases.
Please don’t paint this situation as black and white, with a false dichotomy of either brutal physical confrontation or doing nothing. There are many methods and systems for managing out of control behavior that are safer than grabbing someone around the neck and dragging them. These include: non-violent crisis intervention techniques; the Mandt System; the CCG non-violent physical technique; Non-Abusive Psychological and Physical Intervention (NAPPI); professional crisis management (PCM); Professional Assault Crisis Training (ProAC); therapeutic crisis intervention; and more. Police officers should be trained in such techniques, rather than simply using hardcore violence as their first line of intervention.
Some older Catholic Nun school teachers would make cop brawl look like hugging and kissing. Weapon of choice, the ruler.
G.Mason: I bet the teacher contacted the principal’s office, who then called police.
Fleming and DavidM: I commend you for honestly stating your racist views so that the rest of us may better evaluate what you may have to say. I suppose it makes you feel better to say things that you wouldn’t say to others in person.
BTW Fleming: This is the right-wing government in action. Many of us are old enough to remember Nixon’s call for Law and Order.
The first error in this encounter is that it should have been a female officer responding.
Second, does no one remember how to grab an earlobe?
I have worked spent a lotta time in inner city schools, most of that time back in the 70’s in KC. It was eye opening for me to go into an all black school as a probation officer and see the chaos. In the 80’s I had occasion to go to inner city high schools in Chicago, I could see the increase in disrespect for authority. I substitute taught @ a high school that had a 10% minority enrollment and that 10% caused the majority of discipline problems. I sometimes walk past East High School in Madison during my daily walks and I can see problems have escalated. They have a mix of white, Latino and black students. Most are respectful. But, once in awhile I have some crap thrown my way by black students sitting on a wall outside the school. Mostly just trash talk. Understand, I’m just walking by and I reflexively smile @ all people as I pass them. They are angry, black, males and headed to prison almost assuredly.
It is easy for me to read comments here and know the clueless people who live in their white person bubble. The cop overreacted. The clueless people have no empathy for what cops have to deal w/ on a daily basis. There are many black people, who work hard and have respect that have more empathy for this cop than the clueless white enablers.
People that wet the bed over every little use of force by a cop don’t seem to understand that the power of government is fundamentally coercive. If you don’t like enforcement of rules, change the rules, don’t wring your hands over the necessary use of force to maintain order.
There is also a continuum of force. At one end you have this. A bratty kid who needs a spanking and has made a mountain out of molehill by refusing to obey reasonable rules, refusing to get up, and then grabbing her desk. I’m surprised she didn’t start hollering bloody murder too.
The other end of the spectrum is a real abuse of force like where they shot the poor guy running away in the back who only had warrants out for child support. Now that is a real abuse of force.
People need to learn the difference.
The disobedient child is the problem. I remember growing up a couple times being threatened by cops for compliance, and I didn’t test them. You let all the rule infractions accumulate and pretty soon you got riots.
I would have favored however, taking the cell phone and crushing it with a hammer in front of all the kids. THAT would be an effective policy. Immediate destruction of contraband phones. They’d learn to keep ’em in their pockets then.
Tell you what else. If the community doesn’t like it and wants to “protest,” just shut the school down, reassign the staff, and let them pay for private schooling if they care so much.
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