Officer Ben Fields has been placed on administrative leave and the FBI and Justice Department are being called on to do independent investigations after video surfaced yesterday of Fields picking up and slamming a high school girl to the ground when she refused to leave the classroom. The incident took place at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina.
WLTX reports:
Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said late Monday night that Deputy Ben Fields will not be back at any school, and is not currently working for the department, pending the results of an investigation…
…”It’s very disturbing what happened today. It’s something I have to deal with and that’s what we’re going to be doing,” Lott said.
A video began spreading on social media sites Monday afternoon of an incident that happened at Spring Valley High School in northeast Richland County. In the recording, a female student can be seen sitting in her chair in a classroom where several other students are present. An officer can be seen grabbing the student out of her desk, causing the chair to flip over. Once the student is on the ground, the officer can be seen grabbing the student and dragging her for several feet.
Another student, Nia Kenny, was arrested after trying to stand up for her classmate:
“I had never seen nothing like that in my life, a man use that much force on a little girl. A big man, like 300 pounds of full muscle. I was like, ‘No way, no way.’ You can’t do nothing like that to a little girl. I’m talking about she’s like 5’6″.”
Fields was sued unsuccessfully for police brutality in 2007, CNN reports.
Another video:
