A video clip surfaced on YouTube on Monday showing a public school district police officer attempting to arrest a non-compliant student by violently forcing her from her chair in a high school classroom in Columbia, S.C.
The incident occurred — on Monday — in a classroom at Spring Valley High School.
The short, very raw video shows the police officer, Ben Fields, approaching the female student at her combination desk and chair. He grabs her by the neck. He attempts to hoist her — still in the desk — by her neck and one leg. This move fails utterly. The girl stays in the desk, which tumbles dangerously backward.
Once the desk and the girl are on the floor, cop Fields violently slams the girl forward and proceeds to drag her along the floor to the front of the room.
The room is eerily quiet throughout the duration the 15-second clip, except for a few muffled sounds from other students.
Fields is a very large white male. The student is black — and about 5’6″, according to a student who said she was in the classroom.
Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said Fields executed the violent arrest because the girl was refusing to leave the classroom.
“The student was told she was under arrest for disturbing school and given instructions which she again refused,” Lott told local NBC affiliate WIS-TV. “The video then shows the student resisting and being arrested.”
It’s not clear what the unidentified girl did to warrant arrest.
“It’s very disturbing what happened today,” Lott told Columbia CBS affiliate WLTX. “It’s something I have to deal with and that’s what we’re going to be doing.”
School district officials have responded to the incident by banning Fields from the Spring Valley High campus and from the entire district.
The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund sent a statement to The Daily Caller concerning the video late Monday night.
“This horrific video represents the problem with police in schools in its starkest terms,” NAACP representative Janel George said. “Police should simply not have a regular presence in an educational environment.”
The NAACP called for an investigation into the school district’s police practices.
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