Richland County (South Carolina) Senior Deputy Ben Fields has now been fired for the amount and manner of force he used in attempting to remove that student from her desk during the incident that's been going viral for the past several days.
White male cop throws female black student across room! That's been the narrative. What you haven't heard is why he was called into the classroom in the first place. In its story reporting Fields's firing, the Los Angeles Times has those details:
Students in the classroom said she had been using her phone during math class and refused to leave the room after the teacher wrote her up. After she refused the teacher and a vice principal’s orders to leave the room, officials called in Fields. The student also refused his commands to leave.
Student videos showed Fields wrapping his arm around the student’s neck and tipping over her desk while she was still sitting in it. The deputy then dragged and tossed the student across the room.
Lott said that although the toss was against department policy and gave him “heartburn,” the teacher and the vice principal in the classroom supported what the deputy did with the student.
“The teacher and the school administrator, in their statements [to investigators], both fully supported the actions of Fields,” Lott said. “They both said he acted appropriately, he didn’t use excessive force.”
You've all seen the video by now, and in the unlikely event you haven't, here:
Now look, it certainly looked like excessive force to me when I saw it raw on video. But knowing the back story, it's worth asking what Deputy Fields's options really were. The reason he'd been called in the first place was that the student had defied the orders of both the teacher and the principal to leave the classroom because of her disruptive behavior. The next step at that point is to bring in law enforcement. And when she still refuses the order of a Sheriff's Deputy to leave her seat and exit the classroom, his choices are:
1. Give in and let her stay, thus rewarding her rebellious behavior.
2. Forcibly remove her.
Why, exactly, would it be the right thing to do to choose Option 1? She was the one who declined the simple option of obeying the deputy's order and exiting the classroom. That was her choice and her choice alone. It was also her choice to continue resisting when he tried to physically remove her, thus making the outcome of the confrontation much worse for herself than it needed to be.
This is looking like another cop ambush. The student knew that other students were shooting video of the incident, so she probably figured that as a young black female being confronted by a white police officer, she couldn't lose. If he got physical with her, she'd make the both of them the newest YouTube stars and all the usual suspects would treat her as a victim when in fact she was the cause of all the trouble that happened here.
It's always galled me that when people misbehave, forcing other people to step in and deal with their misbehavior, it's the people who step in who get placed under the microscope for every little decision they make in trying to deal with a defiant and uncooperative troublemaker. And the person who caused the problems in the first place? Why the little darling is just an innocent victim.
My # she is.
And by reacting the way it has, the school district has sent a message to all the other students that if they defy authority, nothing will happen to them. You can sit there all day long and do whatever you want, and when you refuse orders to vacate the premises, no one will make you pay a price. It's too risky.
The inmates are truly running the asylum. And a deputy who accepted the thankless task of doing his job is now out of a job, much to the delight of the cop-hating left and lots of other people who don't make the effort to find out the facts when one of these stupid videos comes out.
Richland County (South Carolina) Senior Deputy Ben Fields has now been fired for the amount and manner of force he used in attempting to remove that student from her desk during the incident that's been going viral for the past several days.
White male cop throws female black student across room! That's been the narrative. What you haven't heard is why he was called into the classroom in the first place. In its story reporting Fields's firing, the Los Angeles Times has those details:
