How come the principal of Spring Valley High School isn't in trouble for calling officer to drag girl out of classroom?
Update 5:33 PM Oct. 28, 2015 Finally someone agrees with me! See last story below. If the Spring Valley High School teacher and assistant principal had had more training, wisdom, finesse and good will, they wouldn't have created an out-of-control confrontation with a girl who quietly glanced at her cellphone and apologized for it. When I was a student teacher I was told, "Never start a confrontation you can't win. It undermines your authority." The teacher and assistant principal overreacted to the girl's refusal to turn over her phone. It could have been dealt with after class when it wouldn't have completely disrupted the class. But the teacher and administratorunder-reactedto the brutality by the officer toward a child in their care. Were they so angry at the girl that they wanted her to be physically assaulted? Did they want "Officer Slam" to slam the girl? Do they not recognize a crime when it's being committed before their eyes against a child they are being paid to protect? Here's an interview with Niya Kenny, a fellow student who was arrested with the girl slammed by the officer.
...Not many news agencies have reported, or even wondered why she
was asked to leave in the first place. As it turns out she had
momentarily looked at her phone during class, and apologized for it at
the time.
...[Niya] Kenny: Yes, sir he's known as Officer Slam around our school. I've heard, in the past, he's slammed pregnant women, teenage girls, he's known for Slamming.
Hayes: Um.. one of the things that's so striking in this video is the
other students in the room seem so quiet and scared and contained. No
one seems to be intervening. Why do you think that was?
Kenny: They were scared, I was scared myself. I felt the two grown
men in the class were also scared themselves because who's seen anything
like that? That's not normal for anyone to be handled like that, let
alone a 16-year-old girl by a 300 lbs man.
Hayes: You at one point did get up to say, what were you saying, what happened?
Kenny: I was screaming, crying, like "Are you guys seriously letting
this happen? This is not right, you guys know this isn't right. You guys
are really letting this happen right now?" I guess they were in shock
but still I felt like somebody in the class should have helped her.
Hayes: Did the teacher or the administrator say anything to the
officer like "hey, this is excessive" or try to intercede in any way?
Kenny: Not at all, they were both quiet just like the kids.
Hayes: So everyone is sitting there in stunned silence, you start saying something, what happens next?
Kenny: And then the administrator, Coran Webb who was also in the
class, starts telling me "Sit down Niya, be quiet Niya, put your phone
away Niya." And I'm like "No, no, this is not right. I can't believe
ya'll are doing this to her."
Hayes: And then you then, are eventually arrested?
Kenny: Yes, sir.
Original post:
Why isn't anyone questioning the actions of the teacher and assistant principal at Spring Valley High School?
by Maura Larkins
It seems that the South Carolina SRO (school resource officer) did pretty much what the teacher and assistant principal expected him to do when he dragged a girl out of her high school classroom.
The assistant principal made the decision to call the officer into the classroom. It appears that he wanted the officer to use force. Or perhaps he just thought the officer would be able to intimidate the girl and she would get up and leave voluntarily. He clearly did not tell the officer NOT to use force. I can certainly understand if the officer believed that he was expected to use force.
The LA Times notes, "[Sheriff] Lott, who rushed home from an out-of-town conference when the news
broke, said that ateacher and vice principal in the classroom at the
time felt the officer acted appropriately."
What was the girl's offense? Texting in class.
Compare this case to a situation in Sacramento that did indeed require the school to use force: a principal was body-slammed!
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Videos of a white sheriff’s deputy throwing a black high school girl
to the floor of a classroom thrust this community into an unsettling
national discussion Tuesday about whether black students are
disproportionately punished.
The incident, which the Justice Department said Tuesday that it would investigate, follows national studies showing that black students were far more likely than whites to be disciplined in public schools, even for comparable offenses.
That
issue was receiving intense scrutiny here long before the videos of
Monday’s incident were released, prompting the district to form a task
force last year to examine its practices.
Last year, the racial divide in the Richland School District Two,
encompassing parts of this city and its suburbs, led to the formation of
the Black Parents Association, and contributed to a bitter campaign for
control of the district’s board.
Yet
this community fits no neat stereotype of racial tension. It has at
times been seen as a model of amicable integration, where students of
divergent backgrounds socialize together. And while some students have
called the deputy overly rough or racist, others, of all races, defend
his record in the school — if not his behavior on the videos.
The videos showed a sheriff’s deputy
assigned to Spring Valley High School struggling with a 16-year-old
girl who had refused to stand and leave her math class, after the
teacher reportedly caught her using her phone. The deputy, Ben Fields,
tipped the girl’s chair and desk backward, lifting her out of her seat
and slamming her to the floor, and then dragged her to the front of the
classroom, where he cuffed her hands behind her back.
Sheriff
Leon Lott of Richland County said at a news conference Tuesday that in
one video, when the deputy grabbed the girl, she could be seen punching
him, but he said his focus was on whether the deputy followed
departmental rules. “That’s what the internal affairs investigation is
doing, and the results of that will determine his further employment
here,” he said.
“Even
though she was wrong for disturbing the class, even though she refused
to abide by the directions of the teacher, the school administrator and
also the verbal commands of our deputy, I’m looking at what our deputy
did,” Sheriff Lott said.
He deflected a question about the role of race, saying Deputy Fields has a black girlfriend.
[Maura Larkins' note: I wonder if the black girlfriend also gets dragged around.]
On
Monday, the sheriff placed Deputy Fields on unpaid leave, and asked for
a federal investigation. The Justice Department’s Civil Rights
Division, along with the F.B.I. and the United States attorney for South
Carolina, said Tuesday that it would look into the incident.
James Manning, the chairman of the district’s board, said the use of force “appears to me to be excessive and unnecessary.”
Deputy
Fields has been the subject of two federal lawsuits about his conduct
in the past. A jury found in his favor in one, and the other is
pending...
Twice
this week, the nation was moved by the way a white cop confronted a
black teenaged girl and her mobile phone. For very different reasons.
In South Carolina, the teen was texting in math class and wouldn’t put her phone away. Teens and their phones, right?
But
the campus officer who came to the class responded in the worst
possible way, yanking, slamming and dragging the girl across the
classroom. It was a violent 11 seconds of video that made millions of
people gasp and, thankfully, got the cop fired.
Sadly,
in this time of a national awakening to stunning incidents of Bad Cop
brutality — from ruthless arrests caught on camera to fatal shootings —
this has become what we expect to see.
But many of this country’s 780,000 sworn police officers know how to do their jobs the right way.
In
Washington, police showed up in a neighborhood near the Nationals
baseball stadium to break up a fight between two groups of teens. After
it was over, 17-year-old Aaliyah Taylor,
a senior at Ballou High School, walked up to the officer and started
playing “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)” on her phone. Instead of clearing out,
as the police officer had demanded that she and the rest of the crowd
do, she started dancing the Nae Nae. You could totally see a teen doing
this, right?
That officer had a choice. Yell at the teen
for being defiant and disrespectful? Go rogue and slam the teen to the
ground, South Carolina-style?
Nope. Instead, the officer
began dancing, too, matching Aaliyah move for move. It was a hilarious,
uplifting and refreshing 56 seconds of video that immediately went
viral.
It
shouldn’t be news that a police officer used her humanity to defuse a
tense situation instead of escalating it, that a white cop didn’t use
force against a black teen. But for many people in Aaliyah’s community,
it was.
All seven of her siblings have been cuffed or arrested
by police for nonviolent crimes, like breaking curfew, she told The
Washington Post’s Perry Stein. And her brother and six sisters all told
her that the police were rough on them. We saw that video in South
Carolina. We know it happens.
Aaliyah lives in a rapidly changing city that is becoming less and less welcoming to people who look like her.
Her
neighborhood near Ballou High School in Southeast Washington is a world
of jump-outs and street corner pat-downs. Dozens of students at her
school have been killed in the past decade. You’re wearing a hoodie?
Dark pants? You’re going to get stopped. Kids in her neighborhood run
when they see police.
Surveys and studies — Gallup, Pew, USA
Today — show that nationwide, African Americans aren’t confident in the
way police interact with their communities.
“I thought all cops were cruel because that’s how I saw them,” Aaliyah explained later.
The
police officer, rather than taking her down like a drug kingpin caught
in a sting, laughed at Aaliyah’s challenge to her authority, warned her
that she had better moves and started dancing, clunky cop shoes,
turtle-shell body armor and all.
“Instead of us fighting, she
tried to turn it around and make it something fun,” Aaliyah said. “I
never expected cops to be that cool. There are some good cops.”...
Victim of SC school assault “had it coming”
By Brandi Collins
ColorofChange. org
Oct. 28 2015
By now you’ve probably heard about the
horrifying and brutal attack of a peaceful Black female high school
student by school Police Officer Ben Fields - an officer with a history
of racial profiling.1 Just hours after the incident,
some media had already begun its routine character assassination of the
Black student and its blind hero worshiping of the officer. The most
vile of this coverage came from CNN’s Harry Houck.
Just like when he was covering the murder of Sandra Bland, Harry Houck thinks this young Black girl “had it coming.”2 That if she only respected the officer she would not have been viciously attacked.
As an ex-NYPD detective with a national
platform, Harry Houck continues to pedal racist narratives that put
Black lives at risk by suggesting that officers have the right to use
abusive force on Black women who don’t respect them. It's an
embarrassment for the network and it should embarrass corporate sponsors
that their money is reinforcing for millions of viewers the both
conscious and unconscious belief that Black is wrong, the police are
always right, and any lack of respect for an officer by a woman of color
justifies a beating or worse..
The South Carolina high school student flipped and thrown across a
classroom by the disgraced sheriff's deputy who lost his job Wednesday
is living in foster care, her lawyer told the Daily News.
The 16-year-old is now under the protection of a foster mom who said she's suffering in the aftermath of the shocking caught-on-video assault, lawyer Todd Rutherford said Wednesday.
News of the unidentified teen's status surfaced as Richland County Sheriff's Deputy Ben Fields was stripped of his badge for his violent reaction to her allegedly unruly behavior.
The Monday incident inside an algebra class at Spring Valley High
School was captured in disturbing cellphone footage that quickly went
viral and raised renewed concerns about racist policing and excessive
force. Fields is white, and the student is black.
"Deputy Ben Fields did wrong this past Monday, so we're taking
responsibility for that," Sheriff Leon Lott of Richland County said at a
news conference in Columbia announcing the dismissal.
"The maneuver that he used was not based on the training or
acceptable," Lott said, adding that the termination "wasn't a hard
decision."
Lott praised the classmates who filmed the officer's overreaction and
even encouraged citizens to keep filming cops to help "police the
police."
The Justice Department also is investigating the case, and Fields may face criminal charges from that probe.
Fields earned nationwide scorn for the video showing him slamming the
girl to the ground while she was still caught in her desk, and then
dragging her across the classroom floor after she allegedly refused to
stop using her cellphone.
Fields' lawyer issued a defiant statement late Wednesday, thanking people for their "heartfelt support."
"We believe that Mr. Fields' actions were justified and lawful
throughout the circumstances of which he was confronted during this
incident," lawyer Scott Hayes said.
"To that extent, we believe that Mr. Fields' actions were carried out
professionally and that he was performing his job duties within the
legal threshold," he said.
Hayes said his client "welcomes the opportunity to address the particulars at the appropriate time."
While confirming Fields' dismissal, Sheriff Lott criticized the teen
for allegedly starting the confrontation and said that she still could
face prosecution.
Richland County Sheriff's Department--Ben Fields has a history of alleged misconduct and is being sued by an expelled Spring Valley student for racial bias.
The girl and a fellow female student who objected to Fields' actions
were charged with disturbing the school. Both were released to their
guardians.
"She was not allowing the teacher to teach, she was not allowing the
students to learn," he said. "She was very disruptive, very
disrespectful."
Her teacher tried to discipline her and called a school administrator for help before bringing in Fields, he said.
Fields was allowed to put his hands on the girl and tell her she was under arrest, Lott said, but he went too far.
"I can tell you what he should not have done: He should not have thrown that student," Lott said.
Rutherford said the girl suffered injuries to her arm, neck and face.
Lott claimed the girl suffered only "rug burn."...
Black girls are suspended at six times the rate of white girls
Maura Larkins' comment: I estimate that thousands of white girls send texts during high school math classes everyday, but we would be truly shocked if one of them were dragged out of class by a police officer and arrested.
Press release by Color of Change Oct. 28, 2015:
...While Fields' firing was absolutely necessary, he [should not be] alone in shouldering the blame for this incident.
From start to finish, there was a total breakdown in common sense and
compassion for the student who he brutalized. Even Sheriff Lott has
questioned whether the officer should have ever been called into the
classroom.2
The educators who involved a police officer in
this minor disciplinary issue and the policy makers who have failed to
limit the role of police in schools must also be held accountable.
Join
us in urging Richland School District 2 authorities to investigate the
school officials who called Officer Fields and to strictly limit the
role of police in their schools. During today's press conference, it was revealed that school
officials issued statements in support of Officer Fields after videos of
his violent attack went viral.3 It's shameful. Any
school official who found Officer Fields' behavior acceptable shouldn't
be educating our children. This type of discriminatory police violence
has no place in Richland County schools and local leadership must do
everything in their power to stop it. As long as policies allow
educators to bring in police for any minor school issue we can expect to
see more and more tragic cases like this one. Richland School District 2
Superintendent Debbie Ham has said she will work to strengthen police
"training efforts in the school," but we need more than that.4 ColorOfChange members know all too well that the police
violence caught on camera at Spring Valley High is part of a much larger
crisis of criminalization targeting Black students. In the
past few years, the number of police in schools has skyrocketed and the
result has been devastating. Known as the "school to prison pipeline,"
kids are now much more likely to be suspended, expelled and arrested for
the type of issues that years ago would have landed a student in the
principal's office.5 Black girls — who face dehumanizing
racial and gender stereotypes — are 6 times more likely than white girls
to be suspended, most commonly for subjective issues such as "having a
bad attitude."6 Police should play no role in the everyday education and disciplining of students.
— Arisha, Rashad, Scott, Lyla and the rest of the ColorOfChange team.
AP 
Richland County Sheriff's Department--Ben Fields has a history of alleged misconduct and is being sued by an expelled Spring Valley student for racial bias. 
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