South Carolina Police Officer Fired After Confrontation with Student Goes Viral

Evan F. Moore | As of Wednesday, October 28, 2015

A South Carolina police officer was fired after a video of him assaulting a female high school student in a classroom went viral this week.

Richland County (SC) Sheriff Leon Lott released a statement:

"From the very beginning that's what's caused me to be upset, and (what) continued to upset me is that he picked the student up and threw the student across the room."

Lott went on to say that "Deputy Ben Fields did wrong this past Monday."

According to the footage, Richland County Sheriff’s Deputy Ben Fields flipped over the girl's desk while she was still in it, throwing her to the ground and then dragging her across the classroom while her classmates looked on.

Many social media users used the hashtag “#AssaultAtSpringValleyHigh to voice their outrage over the recording.

Dawud Walid, the executive director of the Michigan chapter on The Council on American-Islamic Relations in America (CAIR), tweeted “There is no justification for that grown man cop tossing that unarmed girl like that while she's in a chair.#AssaultAtSpringValleyHigh.”

Ebony Digital Editor Jamilah Lemieux tweeted:Black male teacher (something we beg/hope for) being that complicit with violence against student makes me sick#AssaultatSpringValleyHigh”

Civil rights activist DeRay McKesson quipped: “How long will it take for Officer Fields to say that he "feared for his life," which caused him to assault her?#AssaultAtSpringValleyHigh”

Student Aaron Johnson, who allegedly witnessed the incident, took to Twitter Monday night to give his account of what he saw in a series of tweets. He also tweeted a photo of his Spring Valley High School student ID:

“The girl in the video was new to our class, and she was quiet like she never talked to anyone,” Johnson Tweeted. The teacher was really quiet when discussing whatever she did. Whatever she did couldn't have been that bad because nobody knew what it was. Just to be clear, before the video, she was sitting quietly at her desk. Did nothing to provoke the officer...his reply was "she should have cooperated"

Several news outlets reported that the teacher had previously asked the girl to leave the classroom when the police officer was called.

Fields, who joined the sheriff’s office in 2004, has a history of brutality that includes a civil rights lawsuit that claims that Fields assaulted a South Carolina Army veteran and his wife.

Also, a former Spring Valley student alleges that Fields had a racial bias towards many of the school’s Black students.

It was later reported that the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice will look into the incident.

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