The video is shocking and horrifying. Whatever the student did to earn the attention of a police officer, whatever disdain she showed – and even if, as some alleged, she punched the officer – the handling of the matter by forcefully grabbing the student, tossing her out of the chair and dragging her across the classroom was out of bounds. It was dangerous and it opens up a whole new discussion to the discourse on police-community interactions.
Give Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott some credit – while his press conference meandered between defending the officer and disgust, he did the right thing, he did it quickly and he did it publicly.
According to published reports, Sheriff Lott said that the teacher and administrator present during the incident said they appreciated Deputy Ben Fields’ quick response. The student was allegedly disturbing the class, talking on her cell phone and refusing to cooperate with the teacher.
However, Sheriff Lott 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.”
“He was wrong in his actions and it was not what I expect of my deputies,” Lott said. “Deputy Fields did not follow proper training or procedures when he threw the student across the room. It continues to upset me that he picked the student up and threw her.”
People will obviously continue to debate the racial aspect of this – the officer was white, the student was a black female. Would the deputy have thrown a white student like that? Is there a class component – would the deputy have acted this way at an affluent school?
The reason these racial questions keep popping is that these incidents continue to draw them out.
But what is also interesting is that the student apparently is facing charges “for disrupting the class, a commotion that prevented other students from learning and the teacher from performing his job.”
“She is responsible for initiating this action,” Sheriff Lott said. “Some responsibility falls on her. The action of our deputy, we take responsibility for that. What she did doesn’t justify what our deputy did. But she needs to be held responsible for what she did.”
Sheriff Lott said that “he fired Fields in person and spoke to him about the incident.”
Mr. Fields reportedly expressed remorse.
“He’s sorry that this whole thing occurred, it was not his intention,” Sheriff Lott said. “He tried to do his job and that’s what he feels like he did. It happened very quickly and his actions were something that if he probably had to do over again he’d do it differently.”
Perhaps so, but his conduct was so over-the-top and egregious, that it is hard to defend.
Under South Carolina law, it is a misdemeanor offense to “willfully or unnecessarily … interfere with or to disturb in any way” students and teachers in school, or “to act in an obnoxious manner” in a school.
According to the Washington Post article, “Those charged with disturbing schools face a maximum penalty of a $1,000 fine or 90 days in a county jail. Family courts handle such cases if the accused is a minor. Disturbing schools is the third-most common charge in cases referred to the state’s Department of Juvenile Justice, just behind assault and battery and shoplifting, according to 2014 department data.”
Is this how we want to try to discipline our students to behave in school? Through arrest?
The New York Times yesterday reported on a backdrop to this story. They report that “national studies showing that black students were far more likely than whites to be disciplined in public schools, even for comparable offenses.” In Davis we have often talked about the achievement gap, but we also have a suspension gap which has led the district to revise a lot of their rules for suspensions (see December 2014 article and August 2015 article).
The NY Times reports that this issue was under scrutiny in Richland County long before the incident occurred. Last year, the district formed a task force in order to examine its practices.
The racial divide in the Richland School District led to the formation of the Black Parents Association and a bitter campaign to control the school board.
The Times reports, “In Richland Two, where 59 percent of students are black and 26 percent are white, 77 percent of those suspended at least once in 2011-12 were black, according to figures compiled by the Justice Department, though details to allow a comparison of the offenses were not readily available. And South Carolina relies much more on suspension than the nation as a whole; 24 percent of public school students in the state were suspended at least once that year, compared with 13 percent nationwide.”
The Times adds, “Black parents have complained that school discipline is arbitrary and disproportionately affects black students, said Stephen Gilchrist, a founder of Richland Two Black Parents Association. The group was formed in early 2014 to address such concerns and to increase black representation among the school district’s leadership.”
While this incident figures to draw focus once again on police misconduct, we should be looking more closely at the discipline gap and how better to handle disobedient students other than to try to criminalize that behavior.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
No, the reason these racial questions keep popping up is because the left wing press and race baiters continue to draw them out. For instance, you chose to write about this S.C. story where there’s also another recent S.C. story about a white kid that got killed by a cop for trying to flee a marijuana arrest who was out on his first date. Not a peep heard, why because the kid was white?
http://www.cbs19.tv/story/30364787/officer-who-shot-unarmed-sc-teen-wont-be-charged
Sorry, but I just think every time you can’t defend the actions of the police, you try to change the subject.
I think the other story is important too, but this case for me brings up the issue of school discipline gap which I think has been underreported in this debate. I do agree on one point, and it’s the point I made with respect to the officer-involved death here, there are police issues that need to be scrutinized independent of race. But this particular school had a clear and brewing racial divide and the school discipline system has a huge racial divide even when controlling for types of incidents and again, you don’t want to discuss these issues, you want to deflect every time they come up.
BP, spot on. This is also part of the cameras everywhere technology explosion. Before, maybe he gets suspended or fired, maybe he doesn’t.
This is also a continuation of the Black Lives Matter agenda.
a few years ago this story wouldn’t have been a blip on the radar. without a video camera in la, no one would have believed rodney king. you act like that’s a bad thing?
you have this statement reversed, blm emerged out of people sick of these police incidents and no one paying attention. these types of incidents happen all the time, but the only time we know about it is when it ends up on youtube. the problem is now, unlike in 1990, everyone has a video camera and if you watch some of the angles, the kids were sophisticated enough to keep their phones low so as not to be detected. this isn’t going away so you may as well fix it and clean it up
BLM has lost any legitimacy it ever had by often backing criminals and repeatedly attacking police. There has been a jump in violent crime in major cities, many think in response to the Al Sharpton – Eric Holder crowd. The BLM crowd marches and says “pigs in a blanket” – making them look more like the Black Panther Party. Even the FBI has made recent comments regarding the aftermath.
Actually, crime and deaths in many urban cities had dropped by 50%+ in many instances. Look at the huge success of Stop and Frisk in New York, which has saved thousands of black lives. But Barack Obama wants (and has) to released major crack dealers from prison.
What the liberal media (which was on full display last night with their slanted, arrogant questions at CNBC) does is ignore similar tapes showing crime against white and other individuals.
BLM has lost credibility across America except for liberal bastions like Davis.
actually blm is irrelevant because the mainstream of america is taking up the issue. there are real reform initiatives underway coming from congress, the doj, local police agencies, police chiefs, the state of california, etc.
Yes, if that’s what it takes. When a student gets so belligerent and is effecting other student’s learning something has to be done. Yes, the cop in the video over-reacted but at the same time the student was being over the top hostile. Is this an effect of the black lives matter movement where we now have blacks being belligerent to anything police related?
The black student who flipped the Sacramento Florin High School principal on Wednesday was arrested. Should we not have arrested him?
http://www.kcra.com/news/video-shows-florin-hs-student-bodyslamming-principal/36084496
BP
“The black student who flipped the Sacramento Florin High School principal on Wednesday was arrested. Should we not have arrested him?”
Physical assault is physical assault. Of course he should have been arrested. What exactly are you trying to say with this post ? Your juxtaposition of these two cases has nothing at all to do with race. Do you believe that a police officer should get a pass just because he wears the uniform ? These are certainly not comparable cases in any way since the principle was trying to stop a physical fight while the student was merely being obnoxious and disruptive. No difference at all in these circumstances in your mind ?
“Yes, if that’s what it takes. When a student gets so belligerent and is effecting other student’s learning something has to be done. ”
Agreed, but the question is what that something is and research shows that putting people into the legal system early actually works against helping them.
But the schools are often either lawless or over-react, and many are female dominated so that there are fewer physically strong male role models and disciplinarians to keep the young men in line.
I spoke with someone about this recently where an LAUSD elementary school teacher was told to call 911 when a student was tapping the glass in an attempt to break the window.
that would seem to be an argument against involving the police for matters of this sort
I have watched the tapes of both of the incidents being referenced. It seems to me is that we have a Venn diagram situation. We have a set of cases in which excessive force is claimed when the races of the police and the citizen are the same. We have a set of cases in which excessive force is claimed when the races of the police and the citizen are different. Both deserve to be in the public awareness. Both are worthy of societal action.
Is it any wonder that those in the minority would emphasize those incidents where the color of skin seems to be a predominant factor given the long, long history of racial discrimination in multiple forms in this country. Would this not be true even if the “liberal press” never said a word about these incidents ?
Is it any wonder that a set of the white majority, who perceive themselves as completely unaffected, would downplay the effects of these actions on others simply because they do not see it in their own lives ? Would this not also be true even if the “conservative press” never said a word about it ?
I am baffled about how some in our posting community seem unable to appreciate that both the issues of racial/gender/economic/religious disparity still exist in our society…. and that the issue of use of excessive police force still exists in our society, and that sometimes these two issues happen to overlap.
Thank you – well said.
We also have a long, long history or bedlam in inner city schools that goes back decades.
You assume we don’t see it ourselves, when in fact there is a lot of black-on-white abuse and crime. I also know numerous individuals who have been the victim of crime committed by black individuals who simply never filed a police report. (I met one hipster who was jumped outside of the projects on 16th and Mission in San Francisco who was busy moving to another city, and knew they would never catch the three perps.) Don’t forget the Knockout Game.
you always talk about this kind of stuff, but it’s pretty clear to me, you don’t really know what’s going on, you’re just repeating stuff you read on the net.
That’s what you write when you have no response to facts. I’ve volunteered at SFUSD, I’ve worked in South Central LA.
Did you read that roughly 95% of students in Detroit aren’t proficient in math or English? Six decades of liberalism and that is the result.
“That’s what you write when you have no response to facts. I’ve volunteered at SFUSD, I’ve worked in South Central LA.”
you haven’t posted any facts, you keep trying to shift the discussion away from the incident at hand and the issues surrounding it. what does it mean that you volunteered at sjusd and worked in south central? when? in what capacity? where exactly?
BP
“Yes, the cop in the video over-reacted but at the same time the student was being over the top hostile. Is this an effect of the black lives matter movement where we now have blacks being belligerent to anything police related?”
NO. Kids of all colors acting out in school far precedes the “black lives matter movement”by decades. I remember clearly a white kid being extracted from a class by the then equivalent of the safety officer for being obnoxious and disruptive in one of my high school classes in the late 1960’s.
What you are not appreciating here is the age and responsibility disparity of the participants in this conflict. I believe strongly that one of the most important responsibilities of any authority figure in our schools is to model appropriate behavior for the students whose job it is to learn. A student disrupting a class is clearly inappropriate behavior, and this young women needs to learn this. The lesson that she doubtless learned in this situation is that the authority figure believes that he has the right to throw her across a room and drag her out. This is the classic “might makes right” lesson. This is certainly not the lesson that I want any student to learn from those in authority.
Right, she acts belligerent and feels she doesn’t have to obey any authority and what will be her lesson? She will end up lawyering up and getting a huge settlement and be set the rest of her life. So the lesson learned was what?
“So the lesson learned was what?”
Don’t react to belligerent students by throwing them out of their desk and dragging them across the room.
No, that’s the lesson learned by the police and the school administration. What’s the lesson learned by the belligerent student? Act up and you’re set for life? Expect to see more of this with black students feigning authority because they now feel empowered due to black lives matter, the liberal press, the president and the race baiters.
bp – what was the lesson that rodney king learned? nothing, he kept his behavior problems until his death. so the lesson is really for us – if we want the systemto teach lessons, we can’t do it if the authorities commit misconduct.
BP
“She will end up lawyering up and getting a huge settlement and be set the rest of her life. So the lesson learned was what?”
If you are correct, this would all have been completely preventable by the police officer acting in a responsible manner without excessive use of force. Do you believe that his only course of action was to throw her out of her seat and drag her from the room ?
Have you actually read my posts? I already stated that the police officer over-reacted. He let a belligerent student get the best of him. He lost his job over it and is now the subject of both an FBI and DOJ investigation. Why isn’t the cop who shot the white kid in S.C. also being investigated by the Feds? After all, he is dead, this student isn’t. Why, because he was white?
you stated that he overreacted as a way to divert the conversation away from this issue and toward other issues you have posted links for.
you raise a good point however when you ask why the cop who shot the white kid in sc isn’t having an fbi investigation and to me that comes down to the fact that there is no uniform policy for handling officer involved shootings. why not? in part because the cops unions prevent them. why don’t we have automatic investigations for every officer involved shooting from either the state ag’s office or the us doj? we should. most are routine and would be closed quickly.
It was preventable if the black principle was capable of managing the students in his school without having to resort to the police to do his dirty work. He was present prior to the arrival of the officer in question. Why didn’t he do his job and remove the student from the classroom? He should also be fired for not managing his school and having to resort to the use of force via the police officer. Thoughts?
He was fired, so despite his reportedly clean record and his prejudice-free mindset (he reportedly has a long-term black girlfriend), he screwed up.
that doesn’t mean he had a prejudice free mindset, he has a pending complaint that he called two students the n-word. he didn’t just screw up, he completely lost his composure and violated about every use of force doctrine you can imagine.
You’re like a broken record.
who are you to talk?
BP
“Expect to see more of this with black students feigning authority because they now feel empowered due to black lives matter, the liberal press, the president and the race baiters.”
I noticed that you have completely ignored my comment about school disruption on the part of students of all colors having long preceded the “Black Lives Matter” movement. No thoughts on that issue ? No thoughts about the general tendency of high school aged students to press the boundaries of authority ? It would seem to me that it is you that is painting this as a completely racial issue instead of a disparity issue.
No, not me at all. It’s you and David who are painting it as a racial issue. Why can’t this just be a belligerent student who was roughed up by an over-reacting cop? Why does her race have to enter into it? I pointed out the other S.C. incident to show that the Vanguard didn’t report on that because it wasn’t racial.
but you’re ignoring the whole second part of the article. the racial strife at the school. the huge discrepancy in suspensions for black and white students at that district. the national research that has shown a punishment discrepancy by race. you said your wife is a teacher, how many times has your wife called the police because of a student?
Never once, but she teaches preschool and 2 to 5 year olds aren’t the same threat that teenagers can be as evidenced by the slamming of the Sacramento principal.. I will tell you this, over the many years she has taught she had on avg. the most discipline problems from black children. It’s just the facts, I think it spawns from the breakdown of the black family and the children not getting the proper discipline at home due to broken families, etc.
if you look at the article wdf posted there seems to be an over-discipline problem in preschool as well. i’m just of the mindset that reserving the police for actual crimes and allow schools to find better ways to discipline students like through restorative approaches some of which we are implementing here.