The full video of the Spring Valley High School Police Officer brutally assaulting a peaceful student. pic.twitter.com/oHIS8GrtSS
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) October 26, 2015
Courtesy of CNN: The officer, identified as Richland County Sheriff's Deputy Ben Fields, can be heard on cell phone video telling the girl to get up from her desk.
"You're either going to come with me, or I'm going to make you," he says.
When she remains seated, he tells her, "Come on, I'm going to get you up," before picking her up from the desk and throwing her to the floor.
As he continues to try to restrain her, she is thrown several feet across the classroom as the officer tells her repeatedly to put her hands behind her back.
Richland School District Two Superintendent Dr. Debbie Hamm said in a statement that safety is the district's "top priority," and that officials are working with the Richland County Sheriff's Department in an investigation.
"The district will not tolerate any actions that jeopardize the safety of our students," Hamm said.
Of course the officer has been removed from the school pending an investigation and supposedly the female student was not injured in the incident.
It is usually my policy to try and understand the motivation for the police in response to something like this, but I have to admit that the only motivation that I pick up while watching that video is the officer's anger at the student for not complying with his demands.
I know this is still under investigation, but I am at a loss as to how this action can be defended.
And for fuck's sake WHY was a police officer called in to remove a student from a classroom?
When did noncompliance with a teacher become a law enforcement issue?
You know I receive specialized training every year in deescalation techniques, and crisis intervention, and I can tell you that there are literally dozens of methods for gaining compliance that do NOT include throwing a child across the room.
My first take on this is that the officer is dead wrong, and that the school district needs to reevaluate their relationships with the local police department, and that the department needs to beef up their training for these resource officers.