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?
Sorry Karen S.
All the focus on the girl’s ‘behavior’ as if she deserved to be assaulted yet not a peep about the adults in the room and their behavior? So it was this ‘unruly teen’ that instigated and deserved her beat down by an adult because the adults in the room are never personally accountable for their own choice of behavior?
Who tipped that young girl over in her chair…
… The dust bunny?
Woah! Hold it. Leave me out of this. I was nowhere near that juvenile delinquent! Besides I already said I would soak her with a bunch of cold water.
IF this were my child, I would have taken away her cell phone, removed her phone from my plan, locked her in her room and grounded her for several months. Make her publicly apologize to the teacher and the rest of the class for being a giant biatch.
Unfortunately, this so called child will likely grow up to be eventually in jail…..if we are lucky.
Karen S
So assault on some level, is acceptable?
http://www.scribd.com/doc/287136171/Deputy-Ben-Fields-Lawsuit-1
There was a second student arrested in that classroom that day…
… She decided to stand up for her classmate.
Here’s another question I have. Did the cop drop her? Did the girl tip her chair over, and the cop lost his hold on her and she dropped? Or did the cop shove the chair over?
That is crucial to determining what happened. She could have been really hurt.
No matter if the cop is found guilty or not guilty of wrongdoing, the girl clearly has a behavior problem. She could have ALSO been the victim of brutality, or not, but she also has other issues she needs to resolve, or she will ruin her life.
If she acts this way in class, is she going to get into college? Get a good job? Make a good living? Or will she be flipping burgers, demanding to get paid the same as a college grad? She needs to change her ways regardless of what they determine about her run in with the cop. Let’s not lose sight of that fact, because this can affect her future.
Karen needs to first VIEW the video before stating with certainty what occurred. Making a judgment as to what occurred during this incident is very telling. Karen scolds others and admonishes them to wait for an investigation while she herself has already made a judgment as to what occurred by still pictures alone. She hasn’t even SEEN the video.
p.s.
That officer has a history of assault against minors in that school…
If I was a teacher and a student was using a cell phone during class the I would get my cell phone out and call the student’s parents and ask them to come get the brat. Tell them that the cell phone is not allowed in class. No cameras either. Class cannot go on with cell phones being used. Nada. This is simple and you teachers out there who allow it are simple itShays. I am learning pig latin.
Beldar – policing the classroom for cell phones can take up the entire class period. She refused to get off her phone. I don’t know what the school policy is for making calls between classes. She was not obeying the teacher. He called the office. They sent down an administrator (can be seen in the video). She would not leave the classroom. He called the resource officer. He asked her a couple of times to get up and come with him. She didn’t. He then got one of the students to move. Moved the girl’s computer. And then all hell broke loose.
The school district should be on the hook for the lack of safety in that teacher’s classroom.
… The teacher encouraged the officer’s behavior. Those students are NOT safe in his room.
Karen S.
Who tipped that young girl over in her chair…
… The dust bunny?
When living in ‘The Land of It’s Not When They Do’…
… It’s never assault when the police assault you.
And yes he certainly COULD’VE broken her neck. If this would’ve been your child you wouldn’t be so quick to give a pass to the cop. Black children’s lives matter too.
Inga – to say that the officer could have broken the girl’s neck is just plain silly. He was directly behind her.
Oh, and then her patient gets to meet with the President in the Rose Garden, before any trail ever happens. Or the President says this could have been his kids.
Annie is so screwed.
Let’s say we have a 15 second video of Annie and a patient that tips over. The patient is black. Everyone calls for Annie’s firing, death threats, and a civil rights lawsuit. She will never work in nursing again.
Only…there is more video. More witnesses. Annie has an explanation but no one will listen to her. They just know. And they say that her hospital is not allowed to investigate her; it has to be the DOJ. And the DOJ has said in similar cases that the person is guilty before they have all the facts.
Perhaps Annie did wrong. Perhaps it was a training issue. Perhaps criminal. But the mob will ONLY accept criminal prosecution and a guilty verdict.
Annie is screwed.
Welcome to being a cop, Annie, when things go wrong on the job.
It’s like we’re approaching anarchy.
Beldar:
That is a very good idea. Sometimes public shaming by the other classmates can be a very good thing, if it’s to act like a conscience and not bullying.
Annie – how do you know she did not tip herself over? How do you know her leg flew up as a reaction, and not as a cause? They would have to slow the video down frame by frame and show the chair tipping over, and then her leg coming up. And even then, how would you know it wasn’t her upper body leaning back, away from the cop, that caused it to tip?
You are not CSI. And neither am I. Definitely question everything you hear in an investigation, and make them prove it to you.
But what you are doing is condemning first. That is wrong, that is anarchy and mob rule, and you would very likely not want this applied to yourself if, God forbid, anything ever went wrong on your nursing job.
Karen, the cop DID flip her desk over backwards. You need to SEE the video before making assumptions.
Well, of course they are outraged by a few second video. What does that mean? Does that mean they should not do a thorough investigation before making a recommendation? Get all the video? Talk to witnesses?
When I first heard about this, I thought the cop had flipped her chair over, which could have broken her neck. I was outraged. Then I saw photos which show the cop’s hands were no where near her chair, and the girl’s own leg was kicking the bottom of her desk. Now I wonder who was responsible for the chair knocking over, her or the cop? I do not know yet. Nobody does. So, here is an avant guard statement. How about we wait to fire the cop and give him and his family death threats until we find out who flipped the desk over, at least?
Darren’s analysis was calm and reasonable, and of course there is more information to discover.
Everyone is so bloodthirsty nowadays. It’s like we’re approaching anarchy.
If I was the teacher I would tell all students to leave the class room. If the reluctant girl did not leave then just lock her in the room from the hallway and tell her she can not come out. Then when she comes out tell her she can not go back in. Then fine her ten.
No cell phones in class. That is a rule enforced by a ruler. You folks in America need some mean nuns to run the classrooms.
Here is a song which is sung by a former catholic school guy who is not 67 and lived in Ferguson and sang it the other day:
Glory, glory Halleluyah! Sister hit me with a Ruler!
I beaned her in the bean with a rotten tangerine….
And school kept rolling on!