What think you about today's removal of a student from a classroom?

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TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years ago

Today's big news is that a school resource officer violently removed a student from a classroom. There is a video that has gone viral, The Feds are now investigating, the officer is in trouble, parents are up in arms and undoubtedly the girl's family will be filing a very lucrative lawsuit.

Here are the facts as I understand them:

The girl was disrupting class. The teacher asked her several times to leave the room (probably to restore order, protect the safety of the other kids and have an administrator deal with her appropriately). The girl refused to go.

The teacher called an administrator, who also asked the girl several times to leave the room. She also refused his requests.

A school resource officer (aka police officer) was called for help. The girl also refused his order to leave. At this point, he tried to remove her from the chair. If you look closely in the video, the girl was doing two things 1. she was holding onto the chair so that he could not remove her and 2. she was trying to hit or punch him.

At this point, he yanked her violently and she and the chair fell over. He finally got her out of the chair and dragged her out of the room.

Many are going after this guy for being too violent, but as far as I could tell, what he did was the only way he could remove the girl from the room. I don't think he intended for the chair to turn over, but with her punching at him (and probably using some pretty vile language), I believe that, as an officer of the law, he had every right to remove her as he did.

This was a child who clearly was defiant, disrupting class, refusing to follow the directives of the adults involved and also (apparently) was either verbally or physically trying to assault the officer.

As a former teacher I can tell you that a child like this can bring chaos and danger to a classroom, which is why everybody was trying to remove her. Students who are behaving have a right to a safe environment where they can learn without disruptions like this, yet nobody has mentioned this.

What you hear is only about the "little girl's" rights and how the big bad policeman "attacked" her.

Although he does have a spotty background when it comes to using excessive force, he also has been honored as a man who is good at his job and is respected and admired.

I really think it is time that the public see things for what they are. All kids are not angels. Some are aggressive and violent and actually have the goal of becoming problems for everybody.

Whatever it was that made this girl act out, the end result has been serious, and certainly should be investigated.

Those who have never been in a classroom have no idea about just how serious these situations can become. Teachers have been beaten, raped, spat upon, injured and killed by kids like this. It is exactly the reason why we have SRO's in our schools these days.

Comments?
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1. 84
  Au faitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I have read since that the girl was not disrupting class. http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/10/26 … gum-video/
  
  The girl was sitting quietly chewing gum, this was on Twitter, and without warning this cop who has had issues before, attacked her. No order to stop chewing the gum and throw it away or anything else.
  
  Whether this is the accurate description of what actually happened or not, what this cop did was beyond the pale. He shouldn't be a cop if he can't handle situations better than he did this one, and his history says that he can't. I think the included video makes clear what happened. It shows the girl sitting quietly before she was attacked.
  
  The video included with the URL above shows that there was no disruption of the class by anyone until the cop arrived and he was the disruptor.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  If there was no class disruption, why did the teacher ask the girl to leave the room several times, the administrator do the same, and why did the girl refuse to do so?
  
  As a former teacher, I don't buy that she was just innocently sitting there chewing gum. No teacher would ask a student to leave the room because of this offense, even though chewing gum or eating of any kind is banned in most classrooms and clearly against school rules.
  
  Of course the girl seems to be sitting quietly...she has just been approached by a Police Officer...and even in the face of this, she defies authority.
  
  He is treating her as he would anybody he is arresting because she is resisting him and may likely be verbally abusing him or even trying to strike him. Did you hear him order her to "put your hands behind your back?". What you are watching here is a snippet of a few seconds that clearly does not show the entire incident.
  
  For example:
  
  Why was the girl asked to leave the room in the first place?
  Why did she repeatedly not comply?
  What was she doing?
  What did she say?
  
  Teachers and administrators rarely seek the help of the police for students who are sitting quietly and not disrupting anybody. Something clearly was going on here which we cannot see.
  
  It will be interesting to hear the whole story, if it ever comes out.
  
  Personally, I think it is time for kids to learn that there are rules and that they should follow them. This includes "doing as you are told" by authority figures. Learning this lesson can save many lives, and as long as we continue to make excuses and place blame elsewhere, these behaviors will continue.
  
  Clearly, there are those among our police forces who do use too much violence, but if we continue to fire them every time they rough someone up, one day there will not be anybody who wants to do this job.
  
  The same is true of teachers. There are already massive shortages these days because nobody wants to teach kids that can literally do whatever they like and never have to pay any consequences for doing so.
  
  I suspect that this story will end with the parents getting a big financial settlement and the officer losing his job. What a great lesson to teach our young people!
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Here's an article that views this issue from a bit of a different perspective:
  
  http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/i … authority/
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  Au faitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  There is no justification for the cop to treat any student as he did this girl no matter what. I'm more inclined to accept the tweets that were from a student in the classroom than someone's claims to have spoken to an eyewitness. The student tweeting was actually there and it's first hand.
  
  Whether this girl needed discipline or not, she did not need to be physically thrown around like a security dog throws an intruder around. It seems to me our society is getting more violent all the time and some of our cops are not only guilty of creating violence but encouraging violence.
  
  This cop lowered himself far below the worst disobedient classroom teenager and was just short of shooting the girl. I'm guessing the only reason he didn't shoot her numerable times was because he didn't have a gun.
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  Au faitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I don't think you checked out the URL I included. Fellow students say this girl was new to their classroom and never talked to anyone. Maybe she was doing cartwheels and no one noticed, but according to fellow students she said nothing and had done nothing. They also said the other students did not know why she was attacked by the cop. So if she was asked to leave the room by the teacher, none of the other students were aware of it.
  
  This incident is just one more reason why I'm so glad I home schooled my daughter. I'm surprised this girl who was tossed around so violently wasn't seriously injured with a concussion or worse.
  
  It has been my experience both as a student and as a parent that teachers are not always right.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Of course teachers are not always right, but neither are students. Furthermore, the teacher was not the only adult involved in this situation. There was also an administrator as well as a Police Officer. I cannot imagine that the girl was doing "nothing" or that the kids "heard or saw" nothing while all of this was transpiring.
  
  You mentioned she was chewing gum. Another report stated she was using her cell phone. I guess we need to wait until we know the facts of what happened before jumping to conclusions.
  
  The bottom line is that none of this would have happened had the girl simply done as she was told, which was, I guess, to leave the room. Pretty simple, really.
  
  Had she done that, there would have been no need for an SRO or administrator.
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  Au faitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  There is NO justification for the cop's behavior. NONE. He is supposed to be an adult. A professional law enforcement officer. If he can't handle a defiant teenager better than the example on tape then he shouldn't be doing police work.
  
  So far as I am concerned there is no justification for the cop's behavior regardless of what the facts that led up to the incident were. The girl didn't have a gun on anyone or any other weapon. There was no need to attack her. The cop behaved worse than the girl it seems to me.
  
  Just imagine if the cop had had a gun! Go ahead and tell me killing this girl for using her cell phone in class is a death penalty offense. Apparently you think it justifies beating her half to death. I truly hope you were more civilized in your classroom regardless of how your students may have behaved.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  For Pete's sake! He did not beat her half to death. Yes, he was pretty rough with her, but tell me something...how would you have handled this situation? Remember, she was just one of probably 35 kids in that room. And how could the officer know whether SHE might have had a gun! (and by the way, SRO's do carry guns).
  
  You and many others would be shocked to learn just how many weapons make it into classrooms these days. Year ago, when I was teaching ESOL, I asked our SRO to speak to my students about this issue. I never expected him to show up with a box of weapons that completely filled a 6 foot by 3 foot table...everything from guns, knives and brass knuckles to axes! School is not the nice little place of learning we all imagine it to be.
  
  I once had a foreign student, gorgeous girl, who was bitten so badly all over her body by other jealous girls that she wound up in the hospital simply because she flirted with one of their boyfriends.
  
  Remember, she had numerous opportunities to cooperate but chose not to. I agree that he should have handled this situation differently, but I truly believe that he was provoked, as were the other adults.
  
  He didn't shoot her. He didn't beat her up. He had to get her out of that room. He may have used poor judgement or techniques, but in the end, he would not have been called in if there had been any other way to resolve this issue.
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  Au faitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  My video shows him roughing her up pretty badly, if you prefer that word to beating. Call it what you want, it was total violence and if she got no physical injuries it's a miracle. I would not have thrown her out of her chair and certainly not across the room. He could have asked for assistance from other officers if need be. If students are regularly a problem then there should be at least two such officers on duty at all times.
  
  Expect I have dealt with tougher kids than you have because I worked with special needs. They often don't even understand what you're asking of them and some of them have anger and violence issues. One of them that I dealt with destroyed his classroom when he was having a snit. Several of the young men I dealt with were huge, 20 years old, over 6' tall and with anger and behavioral issues along with being autistic and challenged. Some people got a fist in the face or worse. Luckily I didn't.
  
  Anyone who can't handle provocation should not be a police officer. I don't know that in fact the girl did have "numerous opportunities to cooperate," and I wonder if any of this hearsay would stand up in a court of law. Actually, I do know. It wouldn't.
  
  I will say again, I do not care what the facts of the situation are short of her threatening to use, or actually using a weapon on someone in the room. If she did not do that, there is absolutely no excuse for the cop to behave like a crazed animal that is defending its babies. If he couldn't manage her himself in a reasonable manner, then he should have called for assistance even if that meant bringing police officers in from city police department.
  
  Whatever this young woman did, she did not use violence and it worked. She really got under their skin. If a teenager can control a situation without using violence, why can't a professionally trained police officer do better? Why, in fact, can't a teacher do better?
  
  There is no excuse for any adult, certainly not a trained professional adult, using the kind of violence that officer used. It was definitely not reasonable under the circumstances.
  
  Is that how you treat your own students or your own children. They say no they're not going to eat their cereal and you throw them across the room? Mop the floor with them? Everyone complains about how horrible kids behave these days, but look at their roll models. Everyone turns to violence first it seems, so why be surprised if kids model their parent's, teacher's, and authority figure's behavior when an issue arises?
  
  It is the cop's job to determine if she has a weapon before proceeding. Assumptions are usually wrong, yet most people seem to live their lives by assumption. You are correct in that the officer had a gun. Maybe he forgot it was there since he failed to use it. I wouldn't want my child in a school that employed someone like him.
  
  There were no doubt several ways to resolve the situation other than violence. I've already suggested one and no doubt there were others.
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  Aime Fposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Love this post!
  
  So it sounds like she was either chewing gum or using her cellphone, and then refusing to leave the classroom? Yes, she should be reprimanded, but there's no reason anyone needed to physically drag her out of the classroom.
  
  I remember when I was in high school I had one particularly disruptive/rude kid in my class and he often refused to go to the principal's office when the teacher told him to. I remember one time he was suspended on the spot and his parents were called to pick him up immediately. I guess the threat of his parents walking into the classroom and giving him crap in front of a class full of peers was enough to encourage him to leave, because he got up and went to the principal's office as soon as he knew his parents were on the way.
  
  We had schools in our area that were for "trouble makers" (and it took a lot of bad behaviour to land themselves in those schools - not just using a phone/chewing gum and refusing to leave a classroom), my cousin worked at one for years. She said it was incredibly fulfilling to work with kids who came in with zero care about learning and have them turn it around and come to love school. It's hard being an adolescent and I think an effort needs to be made to provide them with an education even when they don't think they want one. Arming troubled kids with knowledge gives them confidence and the prospect of furthering themselves in life - taking that away just guarantees that the bad behaviour will continue.
  
  Anyway, I went off on a bit of tangent. I think there are more productive ways to discipline a child than physically harming them or taking away their right/privilege/whatever you want to call it to education. That's a pretty massive and life altering thing to take away from a kid.
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  gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Not really, if a child is disruptive and disrespectful in the classroom, h/she really does not want an education. That child forfeit a right to an education. Such children should be put to work. I remember my high school teacher saying the same thing over 4 decades ago. If a child is disruptive, it means that h/she DOESN'T want to learn and if a child does not want to learn, h/she should go to work period!
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  If this child wanted to be educated, she would be following school rules and doing what she was told to do, as long as what she was told to do was reasonable.
  
  Nobody was taking away her right to an education, but she definitely was taking away the right to an education from every other student in the class as the result of her behavior.
  
  So, what's the choice. Do you keep her in class as a defense of her rights, or do you choose to defend the rights of the other 34 kids in her class?
  
  Easy choice, as far as I'm concerned.
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  gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  The educational right of the other 34 students take PRECEDENCE over hers. I saw the video, that student was defiant beyond belief. She REFUSED to leave. Correction: she ISN'T a young child but a teenager who should have some cognitive sense as to what to do in a classroom setting. Sorry, she got WHAT she DESERVED!
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  You've made your point numerous times, and I respect your views (although I do disagree with some of them). Do not confuse special needs kids with mainstream students...totally different situations. Special needs kids usually are in very small classes specifically due to their situations. They are taught by people specially trained to deal with them.
  
  Mainstream students sit in classes of 30 to 40 students and are taught by people who are not trained to deal with special needs kids, even though they often do see them mixed in with their mainstream kids.
  
  As far as what will hold up in a court of law...those videos only show a small snippet of what happened, so I'm not sure how much they prove, either.
  
  Most schools only have one resource officer, so calling for timely assistance is not possible.
  
  It is easy to second guess how people will behave in heated situations, but not so easy when you are the person involved in it. I agree, the cop should not be dealing with children if he does not have better control. Whether he should lose his job is another question.
  
  One thing I do know is that, as a teacher, I would never tolerate a totally defiant student and would want him or her to leave my classroom. Most will, but those who refuse repeatedly clearly want to cause trouble. Silent defiance is every bit as powerful as active defiance and brings similar responses.
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  gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  +1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000! Why should the rest of the class suffer because of ONE disruptive student! Really, the officer did what he HAD to do.
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  PrettyPantherposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Now, gm, really? The officer had to do that? Were the other kids really "suffering"? Yes, she was being disruptive, but in a nonphysical and nonviolent manner. It was not necessary to throw her around violently. She was interfering with class instruction, but she was hardly making the other kids "suffer." It was no different in the level of intensity from a little kid passing notes in class.
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  Melissa A Smithposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Really? I doubt your daughter would be at risk for this happening to her in school, unless you know something I don't. I never witnessed anyone other than the deserving have security called on them.
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  Credence2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Did anyone consider calling the girl's parents beyond the jackbooted cop coming and applying police restraining tatics to a teenager caught chewing gum in class and was defiant?
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  What makes you think that all parents are available or even care enough to come. I once called a parent about a defiant child and asked her to come to the school immediately to discuss the issue. She told me she was too busy. When I told her I would have to have him arrested, she said "Go ahead".
  
  The level of parenting that goes on in this country these days is abysmal, but even if a parent was called and could come, if the child refused to leave the classroom, he or she would be left sitting there in a tense situation possibly for hours until a parent could show up.
  
  Sounds good, but most likely would not resolve the immediate issue.
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  Credence2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Question is, did anyone even try to contact the parents? Their mere presence may have allowed the situation to have been resolved without all the mayhem.
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  Credence2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Also, Traveler, can you tell me, did that cop arrest another student for using a phone to make the video recording we all are seeing? If so, he proves that he is nothing but a brute, drunk on his own sense of power. The shoot the messenger attitude does not reflect well on him. If he did, on what authority did he make the arrest?
  
  Statistics support the fact that black students receive greater punishment for offenses in school than whites that offend in the same manner. This same disparity found throughout our law enforcement and criminal justice system. It is incidents like these of poor judgment as to how we begin the walk down the crooked road. Instead of assuming parents won't respond, the right thing to do was to make the attempt to contact, explain the circumstance and as RHamson suggests, provide a period of time for their response and if there is no response from them then escalate the force carefully and in measured way to get compliance with instructions or remove her from the class. The girl could well have been physically injured through this man's horseplay.
  
  I am not defending defiant and mouthy teenage girls, but we have to do better than this, not only for the system but for her and the lesson she needs to learn taught in the appropriate way.
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  rhamsonposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I think this would have been the best remedy to the situation. I would have told the parents to get there immediately with a time element and if not the student would be arrested and they could pick her up at the police station..
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  ...and how do you think they would have gotten her to the police station? Oh, yes...the officer would have had to remove her from the room! These days few parents would even care enough to respond, and how do you "make" them come down to the school, if they choose not to do so? Oh yes, they were probably the same kids years ago who also defied authority. And on and on it goes.
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  rhamsonposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  The police officer would have to call his supervisor and child protective services had the parent not responded. With the help of the supervisor they would have removed her and placed her where CPS wanted her taken. It might be home or jail. The officer should have used force if the girl was a physical threat to other students or herself. If every classroom disruption were to be handled like this one the courts, police and lawyers will have a field day with these results.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Remember that we are talking about a tense classroom situation here. What are the adults supposed to do while awaiting all of these people to arrive, which could easily take more than an hour? Sit there with a defiant child and a room full of kids looking at each other? Your answer sounds good, but is not realistic given this situation.
  
  One of the reasons is that it is not uncommon for other students to act out once they see that there are no real consequences. Then you can have a much more serious problem.
  
  That child had to be removed quickly to avoid further problems. The officer used some bad judgement, for sure, but he got her out of there and in doing so, protected everybody else. That is his job.
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  Au faitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  TIMETRAVELER2, the classroom was tense because the cop was throwing a fellow student around like a rag doll. Well trained teachers should have been able to defuse this situation within minutes and without calling police. Open your mind for a few minutes to allow that violence is not the one and only method of dealing with difficult children.
  
  Do you have children Sandy? Did you throw them across the room regularly whenever they didn't jump to your slightest order or were they perfect, never requiring discipline? I guess throwing them across the room and against the wall once at a young age would probably make them so scared of you that you would never have to do it again . . .
  
  Lots of people know better nonviolent ways to deal with difficult students. Learn them and stop defending violence. There is no defense in this case.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  The classroom was tense because the student was defying the teacher and the situation escalated once administrators were brought in. Having the police officer arrive made it even worse.
  
  This child was NOT thrown against a wall, and according to reports I've read, she was not injured other than having some rug burn. (Even though today she is wearing several braces and her family is planning on filing suit...big surprise there!).
  
  Do I think kids should be tossed around like this? Of course not! Have I ever used this form of discipline myself? Of course not.
  
  I just think there is plenty of blame to go around and that not all of it should be heaped on the officer. You are correct...if the authority figures had been able to handle the situation correctly, it never would have become a problem on this level.
  
  On the other hand, what WAS the problem with this child that she felt it necessary to break several school rules and then refuse to follow her teacher and administrator's directives? Do you think that what she did was OK? Do you think there should be no consequences?
  
  You see, there are always several ways to view situations.
  
  By the way, in case you missed it, the reason the officer was fired was NOT that he abused the girl...it was that by separating himself from her he violated department policy by losing control of her. Interesting but strange take on the Sheriff's part, don't you think?
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  rhamsonposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  She did not appear to have a weapon and from what I could see was content to sit there. For it to escalate to a physical confrontation from a battle of the wills is ridiculous. If the students in the classroom were inconvenienced so what. The class should have been taken to another room or the auditorium if there was so much of a problem. The lesson that was being taught by demanding the child follow directions or else is up to her parents and not a police officer. If the parents wanted to ignore it they should have called CPS and handled it from there.
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  Au faitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  A lot of people probably don't care, but I read a couple of hours ago that her mother died just recently leaving her an orphan. She is 16, and her friend who was arrested for video taping with her phone is 18.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Where did you get this info? The other night I saw her mother being interviewed on TV about this incident...so who was that woman?
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  Credence2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks RH, that is where I stand as well...
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  gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Hate to say this, but sometimes the end justifies the means. This student was a behavioral problem in the classroom and despite repeated attempts by the teacher to calm the student, she refused to adhere to directives. The teacher and administrator were left with no other recourse but to contact police authorities and the policeperson did what he had to do. The policeperson was not at fault but the student was for refusing to adhere to directives to leave the classroom. In the olden days, students like her were placed in I.S. 100 schools i.e. schools for hard to handle and other difficult students. Why should other students be denied education because of a rowdy, misbehaved, and/or otherwise malcontent few.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  +1
  
  So many seem to miss this point, but it is extremely important. If we allow students to flaunt authority figures, then chaos follows in our schools. The same is true in real life.
  
  Nobody wants to see a young person manhandled violently, but sometimes this is the only way to deal with them. The officer gave her a choice, and she chose violence. Sadly, she will probably be rewarded for her actions.
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  gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Sadly, there ARE students like that. Those students are disruptive and don't care about the ramifications of their actions on the teacher and the rest of the student body. People don't want to acknowledge that there are children who are......BAD. Yes, bad; however, there are those who won't admit that there are bad children. They will use rationalization to explain such a word. There are bad and evil children who will not listen to reasonable directives from an adult authority figure, whether it is parents or teachers. Such bad and/or evil children are disruptive to the classroom. They are also those who harm innocent and/or good children. No decent child should ever encounter such children. Such children need force to subdue them as they refuse to listen otherwise. Also, they need to be separated and placed into schools designated for their kind. Please don't say that there is no such thing as a bad or evil child because there IS. Education is/should be a privilege, not a right. Bad or otherwise troublesome children should not be granted the same educational right as other children. By their actions, they don't deserve such. If not special schools, place them in juvenile facilities. In some cases, bad children are placed in prison and treated as adults. If they do the crime, they should do the time.
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  Justin Earickposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  To calm the student? She was simply looking at her phone in class. The officer was the maniac who needed to calm himself. He assaulted a child for the crime of sitting.
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  Don Wposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  “He was wrong in his actions and it was not what I expect of my deputies. 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.” - (Leon Lott, Richland County Sheriff)
  
  I agree with Sheriff Lot's appraisal of the situation, and commend his action in firing the Deputy involved.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  The Sheriff also said he did not fire the man because he tossed the girl, he fired him because doing that violated this policy: never lose physical contact with a person you are arresting! By "tossing" her, he lost physical contact.
  
  Many agree with you, but it seems to me that people should not rush to judgment until all of the facts are known. At the moment, the investigation is still ongoing and certain experts have stated that the officer was within the limits of the law to do what he did. We'll see.
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  Don Wposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  As I understand it, the outstanding investigations relate to whether criminal charges will be brought, and whether there was any violation of the student's civil rights. The Sheriff's investigation related to policy, and concluded that the former Deputy "was wrong in his actions", resulting in him being fired. That investigation has now finished.
  
  At the same press conference you quoted from, the Sheriff was asked what the former Deputy should have done, and he responded: "We would hope that physical force would be the last resort. She wasn't a danger at that point. She was just being non compliant and disrespectful. You try to use verbal commands, you try to do it verbally and you try to de-escalate instead of escalate it. And then when you do have to put your hands on someone there's techniques that we're taught. There's pressure points, there's other things that you use."
  
  He also said: "It maybe needs to be examined, the role of the [School Resource Officers] that some of these schools are using us for. Should he have ever been called there? That's something we're going to talk to the school district about. Maybe that should have been something handled by the teacher and the school administrator without ever calling the deputy".
  
  Echoing those sentiments, the Richland School District 2 Superintendent, Debbie Hamm said: "[the incident] was outrageous and unforgivable, and it does not represent who this district is. We do have separate protocols for disciplinary incidents and criminal behaviour. School Resource Officers are typically involved in the latter. It is essential that our personnel clearly understand not only the nature of the situation, but also the application of the proper protocol. Clearly something did not go right in this classroom."
  
  She went on to say: "We will be working with the Richland County Sheriff's Office to clarify our expectations about screening, and training for School Resource Officers".
  
  And at the end of his press conference the Sheriff said: "Our citizens should police the police. That's their job. To make sure we're doing our job the right way, and when we don't it's up to me and other law enforcement leaders to fix those problems, and either we correct the problem, or we get rid of the problem, and that's what we're doing".
  
  Again, I agree and commend the Sheriff and District Superintendent for their words and actions.
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I'm sorry, Don, but the sheriff's answer sure sounds like poli-speak for "Don't blame me!". And so does the school's, for that matter: "The cop is to blame, not me!". Both are just waving arms, trying their best to find someone, anyone but them, to pin blame on.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  That's because if they accept responsibility it's going to cost them a lot of money!
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Not to mention their jobs. Yeah, that's kind of the point.
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  wba108@yahoo.composted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I completely agree, I'm so tired of the second guessing of the actions of law enforcement. It seems they tie the hands of the Police to the point where their safety and the safety of those around them are in jeopardy. It's easy to question the actions of someone sitting in your easy chair but what people fail to realize is that quick and decisive response is usually best.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Exactly. There is much more involved in situations like these than the general public realizes. Nobody really knew this girl, because she was new. Apparently nobody was informed about her situation. Student "eye witness" reports are basically worthless because kids often have their own axes to grind and love to jump in against authority figures whenever the opportunity to do so presents itself.
  
  Make no mistake. I feel for this girl's sad situation. Nonetheless, she knew the rules and broke them, anyhow.
  
  People have stated that she "wasn't doing anything", but in fact she was doing a lot in terms of school policies. Defiance is defiance. Refusal to comply is refusal to comply.
  
  No doubt she was in terrible emotional pain due to the death of her mother. Truth is, if she was that upset, she should not even have been in school. But she was, and she brought her problems with her.
  
  Blaming the officer's actions is just the tip of the iceberg, yet I hear nobody blaming the girl, the teacher or the administrator. Really?
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  Aime Fposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  That's because the part of this story that has people upset is the fact that the officer used unnecessary force to remove a teenager from a classroom. There wouldn't be a story to talk about if not for that. Those were his actions. He is to blame for that.
  
  Yes, the girl broke the rules and she needed to be addressed. Yes, the teacher should have been able to remedy the situation himself. And yes, if the teacher failed to do so then the administrator should have stepped in and handled it appropriately. Each minor failure lead to the massive one. But the minor failures happen every day, and still don't escalate to the point that this situation did. It was the officer's decision to throw a student across a room and his alone, so yeah, I blame him for that. Completely.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  We'll never agree on that point. Yes, he overreacted, but like all of us, he is human and makes mistakes. For him to lose his entire career over one incident is ridiculous. In my mind the Sheriff only did that (and very, very rapidly) because he feared another Missouri type incident. In time it would not surprise me to see that the officer gets reinstated.
  
  As for the girl facing consequences for her behavior? I have not heard one thing that has happened to her other than the confrontation with the officer. Orphan or no orphan, she should have been suspended at the very least.
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  Aime Fposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, funny enough I think the officer's overreaction means that the girl's consequences have been overlooked and overshadowed. So kinda defeated the purpose, ultimately.
  
  I actually don't think he should have been fired completely, I think he should be investigated and if found to be his only "mistake" be relocated somewhere other than a school.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  +1
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  littlethingposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati … /74874920/
  Apparently the first one disappeared. Anyway, did anyone see this?
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I didn't, and I'm glad you posted it. While 100 students is not a huge amount, I'd like to know how many would march supporting the girl who caused the problem.
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lovetherainposted 8 years ago
Hopefully this troublemaker is expelled. School should be a privilege, not a right.
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  Au faitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I have to disagree. Education is extremely important in this world and taxpayers foot the bill. As a tax payer I prefer the people around me to be educated and therefore less likely to knock me over the head to take my purse or wallet. Educated people are less likely to look for illegal ways to make a living.
  
  Another student in the classroom at the time tweeted that the girl was chewing gum and had done nothing to disrupt the class. I hardly think any student should be denied an education simply for chewing gum.
  
  Meaning no disrespect, but if you favor the sort of treatment this girl received for any reason, I pity any children you have of your own, or that you have authority over. You should be with the cop in this situation -- away from children under all circumstances and with no authority to discipline anyone regardless of their age.
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  wrenchBiscuitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  
  I agree. What the miscreant cop did is wrong. It doesn't matter what the girl said or did. The amount of force that was used should only be reserved for situations where someone is wielding a weapon, and is presenting an imminent threat to others. That was not the case here. I have witnessed this kind of behavior.
  
  I once saw a white woman in her 60's thrown from a barstool onto the floor. She was humiliated and handcuffed by a white cop, while three other cops stood and watched. This was done right in front of the womans husband! I was in-between songs during a performance, and I witnessed the entire event while standing on the stage near the bar.
  
  When the cops came into the bar, one approached her from behind and said she was under arrest. All that the woman did was turn around on her bar stool and say, in a normal tone of voice: "What?" That's all it took. The cop grabbed the woman and threw her to the floor like a rag doll! His behavior was totally unwarranted. Why was she being arrested? Turns out that another woman had accused her of making a threatening remark several weeks earlier at another bar. This woman was very soft spoken. She and her husband were friendly people who came regularly to hear me perform. I will never forget that display of brutality. And it is something that goes on everyday across the United States.
  
  Many who go into law enforcement have sadistic tendencies, and a need to subjugate and control others. They are naturally attracted to a profession that gives them absolute control. They may be functionally illiterate, have few friends, and may be total losers in the bedroom, but when they put on a uniform they become Superman! The transformation gives them complete control over any citizen, especially the poor who do not have the financial resources to challenge their unethical, and often criminal behavior. I hope this cop loses his job, as he is a disgrace. It is unnatural for a man to handle a child in such a cruel, and humiliating manner, especially a female.
  
  As a professional musician, I have handled many situations where people are not only armed with a dangerous weapon, but they are also drunk, or high on drugs. In many cases they are under the influence of everything! For years I have worked redneck roadhouses, and biker bars as a solo act, with no safety net. I have never used violent force, and I have never felt the need to carry a weapon. Why? Because my IQ is well above 125, I use my intelligence to handle various uncomfortable, and volatile situations. I also show people the proper respect. The simple act of showing someone the proper respect can move a mountain.
  
  What we need is not necessarily better training techniques, but smarter cops. We also need to find a way to screen candidates, and eliminate the sadists and the psychopaths. Finally, cops need to act like the public servants they all claim to be. Since when did a servant have the right to manhandle, and abuse his masters daughter? Since when did a servant have the right to kill his masters son, simply because the boy did not immediately obey his command? Finally, although I have presented the following comparison in other forums, it cannot be overstated:
  
  It is common for a miscreant cop to say " I feared for my life". Today, this is a popular excuse for murder, and police brutality. But we need only look at the life of a Fireman to understand that such an excuse is really no excuse at all. We do not hear the Fireman say: "I feared for my life, and so I could not go into that burning building." Every time a Fireman responds to an alarm, he is facing danger, and possibly death. But the Fireman continues, and he does not complain. Why? Because, just like a cop, a Fireman is attracted to his profession because it fulfills a particular need. The average Fireman has a need, and a desire, not to subjugate and control, but to help people, and to save lives. This is the difference between a Firemen, and a miscreant cop. It is a difference that people need to understand, and appreciate.
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  littlethingposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I respectfully disagree with you on a number of points.
  First,
  "Many who go into law enforcement have sadistic tendencies, and a need to subjugate and control others. They are naturally attracted to a profession that gives them absolute control. They may be functionally illiterate, have few friends, and may be total losers in the bedroom, but when they put on a uniform they become Superman! The transformation gives them complete control over any citizen, especially the poor who do not have the financial resources to challenge their unethical, and often criminal behavior. "
  Let's start here. You happen to be generalizing an entire [i]sector[i] here. Law enforcement does not consist of only police officers. You have private detectives, forensic analysts, lawyers, probation officers, correction officers, even transit officers! I highly doubt that everyone in that sector of work are sadists out to hurt people and impose their will on others. I can just hear those forensic analysts plotting to body slam a poor, defenseless toddler! Now my second point is in here as well. Even just narrowing it down to police officers, I highly doubt that even a quarter of them is "Functionally illiterate" Police, like so many others, use reading and writing in their daily jobs. They write reports, read signs, other reports, licenses, warrants, and even I imagine, coffee shop menus. When I got my accident report, it was clear and well written. When you have a group of people who need to write as many reports, memos, and etc. as the police do, they cannot be "functionally illiterate" by any means. They do go through training, which I assume would catch any of those types of problems.
  " Finally, cops need to act like the public servants they all claim to be. Since when did a servant have the right to manhandle, and abuse his masters daughter? Since when did a servant have the right to kill his masters son, simply because the boy did not immediately obey his command?" Okay, third point. I highly doubt the police consider the public at large their "Masters" and with extremely good reason. The police were put in place and maintained to [i] protect [i] the public. If a person is shooting at a cop, or even at others, I do not expect the police to calmly ask several times for them to put down the gun, then try and calm them with words as the person continues to shoot. It is the job of the police to disable any threat to the public quickly and effectively. In this case, the officer was apparently attacked by the teenage girl. What would have happened if the situation escalated? There were a number of other teens in that room, already stressed to breaking due to the situation. Did he possibly go overboard? Yes. Was he, at least in part, justified for using force? I believe so. If the police are constantly trying to "appease their masters" It will cause more problems that it will solve.
  Now,
  " I have never used violent force, and I have never felt the need to carry a weapon. Why? Because my IQ is well above 125, I use my intelligence to handle various uncomfortable, and volatile situations." Amazingly enough, the police do use their intelligence to handle volatile situations as well. they actually receive special training just for this. But you don't hear about the cops who wade into disputes and settle them without violence. You don't hear about the cop who saved lives by talking down suspects. Or who stopped burglaries just with a well timed clearing of the throat. They don't make good media. People are not interested in stories about good cops. However, the police also run into situations that you probably have not. Have you been called upon to interfere in a domestic dispute? Have you been called to a shooting, a bank robbery, a hostage situation, or a riot? I imagine not.
  Lastly,
  " We do not hear the Fireman say: "I feared for my life, and so I could not go into that burning building." Every time a Fireman responds to an alarm, he is facing danger, and possibly death. But the Fireman continues, and he does not complain. "
  There's this thing called Fire Science. It's really, really cool, trust me. But basically, fires can be predicted to a large extent, based on the weather, the type of fire, and the type of building, as well as some other factors. Police have to deal with the human element. Pretty much, no one knows exactly how someone else will react in a given situation. What will send one person off the deep end will calm another. Cops deal with complete strangers. They don't know that you lost a family member, a cat, or are having a bad day. They do not know if you have a mental illness, are drunk, or are on some new variant of a given street drug. They have no clue is you have a weapon or if you decide to use something in your environment as a weapon. If you turn violent, they probably stop thinking to protect you, and begin thinking on how to best protect those around you.
  Where a fireman might be able to predict a fire to some extent, I dare you to try and predict a stressed, angry, depressed anything but normal human. Even when just pulled over, we all get annoyed, at the least.
  Now, there are problems. I will admit that freely. But they are beginning to be solved. I heard a lovely report on NPR today on just that topic. So, tell me, what specifically would you change to improve the situation? I am interested in your answer. And, just as an aside, I happen to be working toward becoming a Computer Forensic Analyst. That's in law enforcement. I guess I'm an illiterate sadist who wants to impose her will on others then?
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  wrenchBiscuitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  
  I suggest that you read a post before you respond. It would save you a lot of time and effort. I have noticed here on Hubpages that people either don't read what has been posted before commenting, or there is a general lack of reading comprehension. The thread is about an act of police brutality. If you look at my post in it's entirety, you will note that I am specifically speaking about cops; namely miscreant cops. For you to ignore this and to focus on the term "law enforcement ", and then to suggest that I am generalizing is absurd. Of course I was not referring to nerds: sexually frustrated men and women with severe acne, sitting in windowless rooms working on forensics. It actually takes brains to do that sort of work. Nor was I referring to any other aspect of law enforcement except for the cops; the police; the guys that carry guns, wear uniforms, shine flashlights in peoples faces, and ride around in funny looking cars. They happen to play a major role in law enforcement. And so, the term was appropriate, and the meaning is clear within the context of my post. I have no desire to take people by the hand and spell out the obvious.
  
  Your second point is amusing. Perhaps you should try reading between the lines a little, and maybe stop being so serious. An illiterate person is defined as someone who cannot read or write. Everyone knows that cops can read and write. Now, when you take into account that I am an artist and a writer, you will understand that I was using hyperbole to express my aversion toward miscreant cops. But what got me laughing is the notion that writing an accident report might actually be on par with W.E.B. Du Boise, Thoreau, or even Shakespeare! Let's keep it real, an eighth grader would have no problem filling out an accident report. The fact that cops can put simple sentences together, and explain daily matters that are routine, is hardly remarkable.
  
  Your third point brings the strawman to the party. Guns, have nothing to do with this story. What if somebody had a gun? What if somebody had a knife? What if someone had a nuclear bomb? And? What is the point of going in that direction, other than to create a new argument; perhaps one that you can win? But guess what? You lost! You lose on this point because nobody had a gun, and so your "Ode to the Good Cop" is irrelevant. Then you come knocking with the fiction that the officer was "attacked" by the teenage girl. Once again, you need to read before you leap. The girl feebly fought back after the officer attacked her! Furthermore, did you see the officer? Did you see the girl? How much damage do you think a little girl can inflict on a grown man? Especially a grown man well trained and ready to fight. I suppose if the creep would have shot her, you might also suggest that he "feared for his life!" The notion that she attacked anybody is ridiculous.
  
  But then you follow with: " What would have happened if the situation escalated?" LOL! Now I'm busting a gut! How, on God's green Earth, could a little teenage girl with no weapon, and I assume no training in combat or martial arts, escalate that situation? As far as your comment about appeasing their Masters: We can see that if the idiot would have used his brain, and taken the time to diffuse the situation, we wouldn't be talking about this now. Had he played the role of a good servant, a lot of time, and money could have been saved, and a lot of ill will avoided. Of course, every situation is different. There was no urgency here that demanded such a quick and violent solution.
  
  Your next point raises another strawman. I wasn't talking about the so-called "good cops". If you read my post you see I used the term: "miscreant cops". Do you know the difference? And so once again, you went off into left field. Your final question continues to reveal that you did not read my post. I clearly explained what needs to be done. I will now reprise and embellish for your convenience:
  
  Things that mentally challenged people in government positions can do to help:
  
  • Hire smarter cops with an IQ above 125.
  • Develop tests and methods to help weed out sadists and psychopaths.
  • Increase pay and benefits so that the smarter people will stick around.
  • Focus on hiring cops who are from the communities they will be policing, as opposed to outsiders.
  • Make it illegal to hire cops that are affiliated with hate groups
  • Terminate any cop found guilty of spousal abuse: verbal or physical
  
  These are good solutions,but rather common. There are several other solutions I have developed. But if anyone wants to know about these, they'll have to pay me first. After all, talking monkeys are getting paid good money to do nothing. Why shouldn't a human being with good ideas also get paid?
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  Justin Earickposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Expelled for being the victim of assault? For looking at her phone? My god, the pervasive racism in this country is astounding.
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  gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  +1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000-school should implement & strongly enforce a STRICT ZERO TOLERANCE policy regarding problematic students who are disruptive & threatening to other students & teachers. There should be a three strikes policy. Students who commit violations thrice should be expelled & have documentation regarding such offenses which will be on their records. There is no excuse for students to act less than respectfully in an educational setting. After the third offense which led to expulsion, such students should NEVER be admitted to a regular school again but a special school designated for them or better yet, a juvenile detention center. Such "children" don't deserve an education. Maybe there should be work programs instituted specifically for such "children".
  
  I saw the video, the student REFUSED to move. In fact, she was defiant and the officer had no other recourse but to do what he had to do to remove the student from the classroom. I do not believe that the officer was at fault in this incident but the student was the instigator for refusing to obey directives.
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Chantelle Porterposted 8 years ago
Well, this is a tough one. I did watch the video. Personally, I thought he could have dragged the chair and accomplished just as much with half the drama. If she got out of the chair he could have then just picked her up and carried her out.
I think the bigger issue is does being defiant warrant a physical altercation? In my book no. I think people who are very into power and showing their authority like to have the last word and end up making matters worse. Sometimes it's just best to actively ignore troublemakers.
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  Justin Earickposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Threatening to other students? How is a little black girl looking at her phone some how threatening to you? Never mind, if you think an education is a privilege, you aren't worth wasting much time on.
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  PegCole17posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  "Sometimes it's just best to actively ignore troublemakers."
  
  Question. Have you ever been a teacher in a classroom where someone is actively trying to disrupt the class and the lesson, who persists in disobeying instructions from authority? I have and it's a pretty helpless feeling to lose control of a classroom.
  
  Way back when punishment was a deterrent to children who were disruptive, teachers didn't need police officers to maintain the teaching environment. When we were told to "Go to the Principal's office" we knew we would not only be in trouble at school, we would likely (definitely) be punished when we got home. Parents supported teachers with the knowledge that they held the key to their children's futures in their hands.
  
  The officer could have called for backup from other teachers and carried the student out while she remained in her desk. That might have remedied the issue. I understand his reaction to the belligerence of this child, yet, I do not condone his use of force.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  +1
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RTalloniposted 8 years ago
He made her a victim for all the world to pity when he could've handled it differently. One can't help but wonder what he was thinking, what did he think the end result for him would be in this day and time? However, one could also look at this as him having done her a great favor since she apparently needs to learn the general rule that the rules are not different for her and that if she does not abide by rules the world will be a difficult place to live. Popular culture does not teach her that, yet popular culture is promoted in many classrooms so what can be expected from students? Haven't seen the video, just heard about it, as I don't want to be a part of highlighting her as a victim. Hopefully, the officers in schools will not have to suffer because of this unusual event and they will have the chance to voice their opinions to set the record straight about the related issues that affect their jobs.
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  Justin Earickposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  How many videos do you have to refuse to watch before you realize that it's not at all unusual?
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peoplepower73posted 8 years ago
I believe he was trained to use the "Use of Force Triangle", like most law enforcement people today. Here is how it works. The officer gives a person a command to do something. If the person does not comply, then he escalates the force to bring the person into compliance. Each time the person does not comply, the use of force is escalated, until it becomes lethal. That is called Neutralizing the Threat.

I saw the video and believe this was unnecessary and excessive force being applied to a teenager who had not committed a crime, but was just not complying to the commands from the officer.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Read the article I just linked to to get a better perspective. This is not just about committing a crime, it is about a totally defiant student that left the adults little choice, even when given the opportunity to do so.
  
  Now it has been escalated into an investigation of "Civil Rights Violation"...which makes the assumption that the officer entered the room and attacked the first black child he saw, without provocation.
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  Justin Earickposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Since when is violent assault of a child the proper punishment for defiance?
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  This was not a "violent assault of a child", it was a Police Officer being forced by the behavior of a clearly defiant child who refused to let go of her chair and tried to assault him (watch her arm as he tries to remove her). He offered her a choice, she chose to take the hard route, so he had no choice.
  
  You and others are turning this into a racist situation. Let me tell you that the race of the child has no bearing on this incident. A child of any race would have been treated the same way.
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  Justin Earickposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Since when is violent assault of a child the proper response to defiance (the defiant act of sitting, btw)? This is not an authoritarian military state - is that really what you think freedom means?
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lovetherainposted 8 years ago
I'm sure she's not a delicate little flower who was obeying the rules.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  +1
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  Justin Earickposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  So...since you don't believe a black child could possibly be a delicate flower, she must be violently assaulted?
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lovetherainposted 8 years ago
It's rotten apples like these that make it a necessity for cops in the schools in the first place.
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  Justin Earickposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  So, you think that the bad apple is the victim of a violent assault, opposed to the maniacal perpetrator? Od(racist) position to take...
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UnnamedHaraldposted 8 years ago
It did seem to me that he didn't just tip her over and drag her out of the room. He threw her across the floor before kneeling on her and cuffing her. Well, I'm just an ignorant civilian-- not a teacher, not a policeman. If I was that big burly cop, I would have dragged her out of the room chair and all. Called her parents, etc-- maybe arrested her. What happened appears to be she was a major jerk and the first thing the cop did was go all medieval on her. Seems like he had an on/off switch instead of a dimmer; digital binary instead of analog. BTW, it looked to me like he put his arm around her throat and purposefully flipped her backwards.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I really do not think he meant for the chair to turn over, but who knows?
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Justin Earickposted 8 years ago
That cop should be arrested for assault and fired for acting like a violent maniac on the job. The student wasn't disrupting anything at all, she was looking at her phone in class. The maniac cop decided to arrest her for disrespecting him or whatever, and then chose to grab her by the neck, flip her over while still in the desk, and thrown her across the room. Then he arrested the girl who made the video, for exercising her first amendment rights or whatever. These cops are completely out of control, they have to be reigned in.
And you have the gall to talk about teachers being raped as defense for this maniac cop assaulting a child, as if her looking her phone has anything to do? Disgusting.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  How do you know? Were you there?
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  Justin Earickposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  She was looking at her phone, refused to give up her phone, and refused to leave the class - she was acting like a bratty little kid. The teacher called an administrator, who called this maniac cop. For that she was arrested and violently assaulted by a supposed adult with the authority of the state.
  There was an entire classroom full of witnesses, and they've been giving interviews (Niya specifically, who is being charged for taking the video, clear first amendment violation). Officer Fields is well known on campus as being a violent maniac who targets black kids for fun, to the point that he is known as Officer Slam. He also violently assaulted a black army veteran, and emptied a can of mace on him, for which he was sued.
  Regardless of the subtext, the video is very clear - this guy is a violent maniac who has no business holding any position of authority whatsoever, and should be prosecuted for assaulting a child.
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  How do you know she was looking for a phone? From a twitter page? How do you know the cop targets black kids - from facebook? How do you know the cop is a "violent maniac" (medical term)? Somebody's blog?
  
  I trust you do know that none of these "sources" is worth anything at all...
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  Justin Earickposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I was very clear, not sure why you are so confused. The girl, Niya, who took the video, and is being charged for taking the video (a clear first amendment violation, which the "freedom" folks care nothing about for some reason, turns out freedom actually means authoritarianism to some of us) - has been giving interviews on what happened, and would know better than any of us how the students at that school feel about Officer Fields. Not facebook, not twitter (funny that you think you are being snide in referencing social media, btw, that's classic). Also interesting how you say that the "source," Niya (an actual person), is worth nothing at all...
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Kathryn L Hillposted 8 years ago
We need to know the history of what was going on with this girl and her teacher / classmates / school / home life. And why do we need such a fierce police presence in this school? No matter what, my view is this:
The officer was way violent.
He should be sued and fired.

We get to see the result of some sort of history by viewing the video.
We do need to know the complete history. Why was this student so defiant? I think she probably had a good cause. We are humans. Humans can be reasoned with. Someone needed to listen to her. Perhaps no one ever tried to listen.
I mean really listen.

I would say it is a case of the girl up to her ears in (receiving) disrespect from somewhere.
Who knows where.
Like an elephant stampeding out of his circus tent, this girl was reacting to long term putting-up with some sort of disrespect and injustice.
How do I know?
I don't.

Just Surmising.
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Aime Fposted 8 years ago
I can't believe that people think some CHILDREN! don't deserve an education. They're kids. They're not capable of seeing the long-term consequences of not being a good student. I don't care how disruptive or disrespectful they are, they need a chance to learn somewhere. I agree that in extreme circumstances they should be put in a school that focuses on troubled kids and has teachers who are trained to deal with such children and programs that target their needs. But how do you expect a disruptive child to become a productive adult without an education? That seems so incredibly counterproductive to me.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  You keep saying someone is trying to deprive this child of an education. Nobody is trying to deprive her of anything. The adults in this situation tried everything to make her leave the room before calling the Police Officer for help. Obviously, she had to be doing something that caused them to get to this point.
  
  If she wants an education, it is hers for the taking, but to get it, she has to conform to the rules, which includes following adult directives.
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  Aime Fposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  It's been said at least a few times now that "education is a privilege and not a right" and I'm disagreeing. It should be a right. People have said she should have been expelled (for using her phone and refusing to leave the room?) or that disruptive students should be sent to juvenile detention centres instead. I think that's insane. If that's all it took to get expelled/sent away somewhere then I'd have gone to high school with many less students (most of whom are now successful adults).
  
  I've personally seen a student refuse to leave a classroom, I honestly don't think it's all that uncommon. Yes, it's annoying and they should be listening instead of challenging. I'm not condoning her behaviour. But I sure as hell am not condoning her being attacked by a grown man and I think people manage to handle these situations every single day without throwing a kid across a room. There are ways to teach to consequences in these situations without kicking a kid out of school or forcibly removing them from a classroom. I am positive it happens all the time.
  
  Do those of you saying this guy's behaviour was okay have children? Would you really be fine watching someone treating your kid like that because they were being mildly disruptive?
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  We're teaching our kids that the only consequences for their poor decisions and actions are those appropriate for a 4 year old. "Go stand in the corner for 5 minutes" isn't much of a learning experience for a teenager.
  
  All the kids in that classroom have been taught a lesson, and a very valuable one. Very negative actions carry a very negative consequence; you cannot just do whatever you wish.
  
  Of course, when this girl wins a court case and struts back into the classroom, the lesson (for everybody in the school) changes to "I really CAN do whatever I want". Now that's counterproductive!
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Absolutely spot on...and that's why this is such a bad situation. It makes things worse for everybody, all because one kid was defiant.
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  PrettyPantherposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  No, all because the officer used unnecessary force. Kids are defiant all the time. Most adults handle it just fine, without resorting to physical violence. The sad thing is, he is supposed to be trained to handle these sorts of things.
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  Aime Fposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Which is more disruptive, a child with her phone out refusing to leave the classroom, or a child being violently attacked by a big man with a gun? Gee, that's tough!
  
  I agree that unfortunately teenagers being defiant is pretty normal. It's a weird time in life for most people and a time when many choose to test boundaries. As I said previously, I'm willing to bet this happens at least once a day in other high schools around the world and is dealt with appropriately.
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  PrettyPantherposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Exactly. There are people on here who defend the actions of bully cops, even when they kill people. I don't understand it, and it makes me sick, truly.
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  Susana Sposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  As far as I can see the only learning experience here is to violently force people to comply when they don't do what you want.
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  Aime Fposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Yep! I can't believe people are essentially saying "well the teacher asked her to leave so what else were they supposed to do?" If you can't find a solution somewhere between asking a child to leave and flipping their chair over and throwing them across the room then you shouldn't be working with kids. Simple.
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Live to Learnposted 8 years ago
Whatever the child did, or didn't do; if asked to exit the classroom by a teacher she should have done it. When I was in school there was a time or two where I was asked to go to the principal's office. I did it immediately. I wasn't always in the wrong and that came out when I talked to the principal; but the teacher is in charge of his/her classroom. I've also been in classes where the teacher was not in charge of their classroom and little learning was accomplished.

So, if the child was asked to leave (for whatever reason) she should have followed instructions. If the police officer used poor judgement or excessive force he should probably be moved into another position and an adult who is able to keep their calm around ill mannered children should replace him.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  +1
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ahorsebackposted 8 years ago
Shock , ? Your kids are being "educated " in an atmosphere of anarchy ! Who's it created by . by Free will ." My child can do no wrong " ,

This what happens when you have allowed and promoted your schools into day cares , Anyone who is old enough will remember what their parents would have asked if this student were YOU.

" What the hell did YOU do to have that cop go off on you ? "
" Why didn't YOU do what the teacher told you too do ?
" What the hell were YOU thinking ?"

That is what's wrong here , the way YOU are raising your kids !
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  gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  EXACTLY!
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++1
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Susana Sposted 8 years ago
Don't your police/teachers etc get training in how to deal with difficult situations without using violence?

If not, they certainly should be.

Violence like this against children is shameful.

No wonder U.S. society is so messed up if that's how your role models behave.
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  Au faitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Susana S., you are so right! Sadly, the answer regarding training for dealing with difficult situations is no, at least in the school district where I worked. We were told all but nothing about the students we would be working with and had to pretty much wing it and hope for the best. But I can tell you no one would dare lose it like the cop in the video here did.
  
  Although a similar incident did happen in McKinney Texas involving teenagers at a pool party last spring where police used unnecessary force. It was all over TV at the time.
  
  This girl in the video did nothing to justify the cop’s actions in throwing her on the floor and dragging her around, etc. Nothing. He is also a coach for one of that schools sports teams.
  
  I don’t think the man belongs anywhere around children of any age, nor should he have a job that gives him any authority over any other person. What you say about setting examples and being roll models is so true. The students in that room were all learning that the way to resolve an issue is to resort to violence first and consider other options later if need be, but only if more violence doesn’t get the desired effect.
  
  You are so right in that exemplifying violence as a solution is a major reason why American society is so violent. It’s all about beating people into submission and having a gun handy in case that doesn’t work — although plenty of cops do seem to go for the gun first if we can believe the video we see frequently on TV of various other incidents where excessive force has been used by police.
  
  My supervisor had to be called when one of my students got on our bus in a rage and wouldn’t control herself. She was 20 and had just experienced a bad situation with other authority figures and was taking it out on myself and my driver. We couldn’t proceed under the circumstances. This girl was stomping up and down our school bus isle shouting and banging on things, etc. She even stomped on my foot, but I didn’t drag her by the hair up and down the bus isle. My supervisor came to the location of the incident and had a few words, which we were all privy too, with the girl, and without ever touching the girl even lightly with a single finger, the girl settled down and cooperated.
  
  The girl in the video was an angel comparatively to the girl I just described. Not that my student was bad, but she was out of control. Young people have trouble learning to control their tempers and their feelings sometimes, and using excessive force is not the best answer in my humble experienced opinion. A shame more teachers and cops are not taught about the options other than violence. There are other options.
  
  Susana S., thank you for your opinion. There are some other very good comments here also. The cop here was out of control and by not using the best method to handle the situation he has made himself the subject of unnecessary force and bad judgment. Being the adult in this situation, and the professional, he should be held accountable.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Society is messed up because many parents are not raising their children to behave themselves, follow rules and respect authority figures.
  
  Clearly, violence is not an answer, but neither is allowing students to be so openly defiant that the police must be called in.
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  Au faitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  TTIMETRAVELER2, no need to resort to violence to hold a student accountable. Just read where Sheriff Lott of Richland Country said police should not be called in situations like the one this girl caused. So police didn't need to be called. Teachers need to learn how to manage defiant/difficult students.
  
  Read my other comments. My supervisor managed a more difficult situation that I was part of and witnessed, so it can be done, but first teachers have to 'want' to resolve issues without violence, and then they need to learn how and stop relying on police for every little student infraction.
  
  You're a smart lady and you write some great articles on RVs. I think you and many if not most teachers could learn methods of diffusing difficult situations without violence or police assistance.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  You are assuming that I never did this. Actually, I never called in an SRO or struck a child for misbehavior, even when a child threatened to strike me.
  
  I did, however, threaten to quit my job if my administrators did not provide consequences for that student. I have 26 years of successful teaching and was always a strong disciplinarian. I was able to provide many non violent consequences that worked, but all teachers are not the same and some need more help (and training) than others. Which brings up a good point: Why isn't anybody questioning the behavior of the teacher or the administrator?
  
  Perhaps if they had done a better job, no policeman would have been needed!
  
  In the end though, it still all boils down to the fact that one child in one classroom in one school has caused a real problem and a lot of upset nationwide...all because she could not do something as simple as walk out of a room when told to do so.
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  gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  It IS only a minute minority of children who cause problems in the classroom. It happens in the best of schools; however better schools discipline such children even to the point of expulsion (like my school did). Private schools usually have a ZERO TOLERANCE policy regarding recalcitrant and other problematic students. Also such students oftentimes come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Schools where there is a proliferation of lower income students will have the MOST problems and violence. Schools where there are few or to lower income students oftentimes don't have such problems because more socioeconomically affluent children are taught to value education.
  
  It is de rigueur in lower income schools to have high incidences of violence in the classroom. Lower income children aren't taught to value authority nor education. They see school as a glorified detention center and act accordingly. They also have negative attitudes towards achievement and education. Teachers have an uphill road ahead of them when they have to teach lower income students as opposed to middle, upper middle, and upper income students. Lower income students are an emotional, mental, psychological, and even psychic challenge to teachers. I feel sorry for any teacher who has to teach such children for they are problematic unlike middle, upper middle, and upper class students. To reiterate, the problematic children came from lower income backgrounds.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Check out this discussion on CNN. It deals directly with the issue of failure to comply.
  
  http://mediamatters.org/video/2015/10/2 … t-w/206445
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  Au faitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  TIMETRAVELER2, I watched the video at the URL you gave. I noted that Chris Cuomo wouldn't allow the expert to talk. He kept trying to say the cop should not have been involved in the incident in the first place, but he was not allowed to finish a sentence. I'm a little surprised and Chris and I have to say my respect for him has suffered as a result.
  
  As the expert Professor tried to say, the girl has been criminalized needlessly. The teacher should have been able to handle the situation without a cop's assistance. The only people defending this cop are people who do not know any way to solve problems but with violence and so they naturally defend it. There is no defense and a lot of us recognize that.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  and a lot of people do not defend it because they realize that in certain situations, there may not be a choice. If you look at the posts here, views go both ways.
  
  In reading them, I have come to the conclusion that the officer went too far, but also that there need to be consequences for noncompliance in these types of situations.
  
  The other man in the video was a law officer, so he naturally was presenting a view different from that of the professor.
  
  I can't argue with the professor. The teacher should have been able to handle the situation by somehow diffusing it. However, and as I'm sure you know, this is not always possible.
  
  I also cannot argue with the former cop. People must learn to comply with the rules and officers are trained to make them do that if they refuse to do it themselves.
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  Au faitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I wrote that very thing several times, but nobody bothers to read it. The sheriff has said all day long that the teacher and administrator should have handled the situation and there should have been no need to call police. That is who I keep alluding to, and saying straight out that they were incompetant. I wasn't talking about you, Sandy.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks for clarifying for me, and I totally agree.
  
  I do think that with all of the school violence these days, educators are afraid to confront students and feel that these things are better left to the police.
  
  This clearly is the wrong attitude, but I can understand why people have it. I taught in a school years ago where two young teenagers entered the cafeteria at lunch time, shot the principal in the face and killed him, and wounded a VP in the stomach and a student PE teacher in the leg before they were stopped.
  
  Since they were both minors at the time, both went to Juvenile Hall for awhile, and were then released. One went on to Jr. College and both are probably living the good life today.
  
  In the meantime, every teacher in that school was totally traumatized and few ever recovered. Some quit. Others went to different schools, but things were never the same.
  
  This was shortly after Columbine happened. Since then, as you know, there have been numerous reports of school killings. It is no wonder that educators are fearful and want the police to step in.
  
  When there are few if any meaningful consequences to misbehavior, etc., the end result is never good.
  
  This does not excuse what the cop did. It also does not excuse the fact that apparently the educators were uninformed, untrained and/or incompetent. It also does not excuse what the girl did.
  
  I feel for her situation and know she had to be filled with rage, fear and feelings of abandonment when this happened. Too bad she just didn't think to see a counselor and seek help.
  
  Pity, this.
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  rebekahELLEposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  My immediate reaction was also, where is the training? The role modeling?
  
  I haven't read all the details of the account, but saw the video and heard that he has been fired. He was clearly out of control. She was being defiant by not doing as she was asked, but in my opinion THE administrator should have been there, the one responsible for the entire school. And she/he doesn't leave the classroom until the situation is under control. It sounds like it was one of the administrators, but not the principal. I think anytime a threatening situation requires the assistance of the SRO (who was not trained by the national SRO agency), the top administrator should be the one in charge of how the situation is dealt with, if the teacher can't handle it on her own.
  
  I was a teacher for many years of much younger children. And they can be very violent when out of control. We were required to call for the administrator when a situation looked or became threatening.
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PrettyPantherposted 8 years ago
This situation could have been handled without escalating to physical violence. It's ridiculous to say that level of force was necessary. Yes, the student was disrupting class, but in a nonviolent, nonphysical manner. No one was in any kind of danger. The officer's violent removal of the student was neither justified nor necessary.

Apparently, his boss agrees: Sheriff to announce South Carolina deputy Ben Fields to be fired
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  Au faitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  PrettyPanther, agree totally. Glad he's been terminated and now he needs to be charged with assault. It's time to stop letting these' professionals' off the hook for using unnecessary excessive force.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  If you listen closely to what the Sheriff said, note that the reason the officer was fired was NOT that he threw her, but rather that the policy of the department is that you are never to let go of a person without a weapon, and by throwing her, he lost control of her. Thus, he was fired for violating the department's policy. Two different things.
  
  Here's a direct quote from a Washington Post Article:
  
  Officials also have uncovered another video, recorded from a different angle, showing the student resisting, “hitting the student resource officer with her fist and striking him,” Lott said.
  
  “She bears some responsibility. If she had not disturbed the school, disturbed the class, we would not be standing here today. It started with her, and ended with my deputy.”
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PrettyPantherposted 8 years ago
By the way, you all who are bemoaning the horrible disruption of the other kids' education by a girl refusing to stand up and leave might consider that education of children involves more than just academics. At school, kids learn how to navigate social situations and deal with conflict, often by observing how adults handle those situations. So, you think this is how conflict should be handled? Do as I say, or I will violently throw you to the ground? I say that is ridiculous. I raised two teenage boys as a single Mom and managed many a defiant moment without slamming them to the ground, which is a good thing since they were both as big as I was by about the age of 12.
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Aime Fposted 8 years ago
Do you guys not remember disruptive students in class when you went to high school? I remember it happening all the time and I still got a great education. I think watching someone who was there to protect us violently attack another student would affect my education much more than a disruptive student (who never did anything to threaten anyone else, just refused to leave her seat), because then I'd be wondering how much I could trust the authority figures in my school, wondering if any slip I could make could land me in the same position, etc. I'd probably be afraid to be at school after that.
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  gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I remember at in 7th grade at a private school. There was ONE disruptive student in particular. The teacher used physical discipline on the student and SHE was NEVER disruptive again. I can tell you that. In fact, the disruptive students (a minute minority, less than 5% of the student body) at the school were SEVERELY PUNISHED, some were EXPELLED. My school has ZERO tolerance for disruptive students. After the teacher and parent DISCIPLINED the children, they NEVER ACTED OUT again. Back in the day, there was such a thing as CORPORAL punishment. That is what bad and disruptive children GOT pure and simple!
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  PrettyPantherposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Sorry to hear your learning environment was so violent. While I understand you think those tactics were effective in stopping the disruption, I submit that corporal punishment is not the only method to stop disruption, and in fact has been shown to have negative long-term consequences to the development of children.
  
  But, I don't want to go off on a tangent. The fact remains, the officer was fired for his behavior because it was wrong.
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  gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  My learning environment wasn't violent at all. However, students who were disruptive were promptly disciplined. My school(a private school) had ZERO tolerance for such children. Over 90% of the children were good while a minority were bad and the latter were disciplined, with some being expelled. There are bad children in every school but they are DEALT with severely in my school.
  
  My private school NEVER tolerated violence. No violence just defiance. My school didn't tolerate defiance. It didn't tolerate fighting-children were put on check by both teachers and parents. It was never the middle income students who were disruptive, it was ALWAYS the lower income students(in the minority) who were but they were either disciplined or expelled. The teachers DIDN'T tolerate that, they stressed discipline and education. Even in the best schools, children acted OUT but they were kept in check unlike public schools where children are allowed to go wild Then it is always the lower income children who are discipline problems in the classroom.
  
  Any school that has a minute percentage of lower income children will have a type of discipline problem, that goes with the territory. It was the lower income children who were problematic, never the middle income children who were well-trained, well-behaved, and willing to learn. In fact, even the lower income children learned because if they did not, they would face dire consequences from the teachers and principal.
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  PrettyPantherposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I have no problem with discipline. I have no problem with controlling disruptive students. It can be done without hitting, throwing, dragging, spanking, or yanking. People raise well behaved kids all the time without doing any of those things. If an adult can't figure out how to discipline a physically nonviolent child without doing those things, then that adult should not be in a profession working with kids.
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  Au faitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  As you of all people should know, just because people are doing something doesn't make it right or mean it is the best solution to whatever problem is being addressed.
  
  There was a time in the past when women and other people were abused pretty badly, but that didn't make it right, did it? We've changed a lot of that, and hopefully one day in yours and my lifetimes things will be equal for everyone and no one will need to fear because of who they happen to be.
  
  We need to change child abuse too. Parents are jailed for doing it, but teachers and police and other authority figures are still allowed to get away with abuse that is often far worse than most parents would administer. That needs to change. There are ways to hold children accountable and teach them how to manage difficult situations without resorting to violence and abuse. Everyone needs to be able to control their temper and there are ways to do that. People, especially people in charge of other people, need to learn those methods.
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Aime Fposted 8 years ago
That's terrible and I'm glad that's not how things work anymore.
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  gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  No, it WASN'T terrible. Students were IN LINE, knowing that if they misbehaved, there would be CONSEQUENCES. Bad and other recalcitrant students KNEW their place. If they misbehaved and/or acted out, teachers and parents DISCIPLINED them and WEREN'T AFRAID to do so. That is what GOOD to EXCELLENT schools do. These bad children weren't about to prevent good children from learning and THAT IS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE.
  
  Also, in the video, the girl hit the officer and the officer was merely defending himself. That girl was a pistol. She FOUGHT every step of the way, what do you expect from the officer? Stop blaming the officer, the girl instigated the incident. Do the crime, do the time!
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  Aime Fposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  They knew that if they didn't follow the rules an adult would hit them. Nice. I'd rather see kids suffer natural consequences and actually learn something valuable from the situation, not just that someone's going to smack 'em around if they don't do what they're told.
  
  I find it funny that if you hit another adult it's considered assault but if you hit a kid it's called "discipline".
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  His point is that kids knew there would be consequences for misbehavior. This is something everybody needs to know. If you do something wrong, you should pay a price for doing so. If you throw this concept out the window, then we all can just do whatever we like. Is this the world you want to live in?
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  Aime Fposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  You can still discipline without hitting kids. My parents never laid a hand on me but I still suffered consequences when I did something wrong. It's not that complicated and yet people are still too lazy to think of better ways to handle these situations so they just decide to hit them instead. Sad.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Of course you can. Nobody is saying otherwise. Much, however, depends on the circumstances. In this case you are not talking about one parent and one child. You are discussing open defiance that continued on to a ridiculous level, got out of hand, raised emotions and ended in violence. Big difference.
  
  Just out of curiosity: What did your parents do when they told you numerous times to go to your room and you refused to do so? What did they do when you refused to completely cooperate with anything they told you to do? How do you think they would handle this situation if you were sitting in a room full of other people and behaving this way?
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  gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Some children can be disciplined without use of type of physicality. They understand directives and obey. Then there are some children who can be told directives repeatedly but they REFUSE to listen, even becoming more defiant. Such children will only understand directives if some type of physical force is used(not necessarily spanking). Then, the child's socioeconomic background is influential. Many middle, upper middle, and upper class children respond to more verbal forms of discipline whereas lower income children respond to more physical forms of discipline because they feel that verbal discipline is weak. The background of the lower income child is more brutish and violent and sadly, that is all they understand.
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  Aime Fposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  This was pretty simple at my house. If I didn't do something that my parents asked of me or did something that they specifically asked me not to do, we had a sit down conversation. They asked if I knew why they were asking me to do/not to do something. If I said yes they would have me explain it to them. If I said no they would explain it to me. They communicated with me and if I said I still thought their punishment was crap they would ask if I trusted them and if they ever did anything to make me believe they were punishing me for no good reason. The answer was always yes I trusted them and no they didn't give me reason to believe they would punish me for no good reason. Basically, they tried to make me understand the issue and why I was being punished. They appealed to my ability to reflect on what I had done and my respect for them, which was extremely high because they always had a huge amount of respect for ME and wanted to work with me to find solutions instead of just saying "this is how it is, deal with it."
  
  There were a few times as an emotional teenager where that didn't work, but a vast majority of the time it did. The times when it didn't work they would find some sort of punishment that was directly related to my "crime." So the time I refused to give them my cell phone after lying repeatedly about who I was talking to (ah, secret boyfriends!), they straight up said they would stop paying for it as I couldn't be trusted to be responsible with it.
  
  There was never any point where I refused to go to my room (since the approach of communicating with me was almost always effective) but I would imagine in that situation they would find a punishment suitable to the situation. If my daughter was older and refused to go to her room I would say that okay, if she's not going to give me the respect of listening to me and doing what I'm asking of her, why would I drive her to her friend's house, take her to the mall, etc. You don't do what I'm asking you to do and I won't do you any favours in return. I would never, ever hit her. It's not an option. If I want her to respect me then I need to respect her.
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  But none of those "severe" consequences are available to the school. Not taking a phone, not removing privileges, not refusing to take her to the mall. Not even removing her from the classroom without violence.
  
  Communication was tried and failed. Outside of force, what's left? Ask her to pretty please stand in the corner?
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  Aime Fposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  That's why you call her parents. Let her sit there and do whatever she wants quietly on her phone until her parents show up and deal with it.
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Quietly? And when the rest of the students find they can play on their phone against the rules, too? What then?
  
  Our schools are NOT a baby sitting service, subject to the whims of either students of parents. Students will NOT be allowed to disrupt classes or follow rules only when they choose. Rules are in place for a good reason, and it isn't so students can violate them at will - what you propose will remove any small amount of teacher authority they have left.
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  Au faitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Ms. Williams, I should have put your name at the beginning of my comment above, but I hope you will find it and read it regarding the way things have been traditionally handled in our society in years gone by and how we have hopefully found better ways today.
  
  it's true the girl tried to hit the officer, but handled correctly the officer would not even have been there to hit. Sheriff Lott of Richland County says teachers should be able to handle these situations without calling police.
  
  Further, the cop escalated the situation to where it became dangerous. Someone could have been seriously injured, permanently handicapped, or even died. I'm surprised the girl didn't get a concussion.
  
  The cop's boss, Sheriff Lott, was so nauseated and disgusted with Officer Fields' behavior that Fields has been terminated. The girl now has a lawyer and it need never have escalated to this current situation.
  
  There are better ways to handle these things. Lots of people know what those ways are, and it wouldn't take that much effort for people to raise their own standards and learn those methods that do not require violence. The girl acted like the teen she was, the cop acted like a 2-year old on growth hormone who doesn't know his own strength.
  
  I have managed worse student behavior myself, and without resorting to violence. Teachers in that school need some enlightenment. Some cops need some too. It's cops like Fields that give all the others a bad name.
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colorfuloneposted 8 years ago
Here is a better video then the ones I had seen before.
Appearances can be deceiving, and a closer look can tell a very different story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECnkuJ43oTo

The girl was asked repeatedly to leave the classroom and she refused. She escalated the situation into the police officer having to remove her.

If you watch closely the officer was very calm and asked her quietly to stand up.
She refused once again.
He put his hands on her to make her leave, that IS his job.
That is when she started punching and kneeing at the officer and she caused her desk to tip over.

That is what I see.
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  gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I SAW this also. The girl is DEFINITELY at FAULT here! She refused to leave when told to do so. In addition to this, she hit the officer-bad move there! What else is the officer going to do. The officer was left with no other recourse but to use force. She was not a child but a teenager who should have know better! If this was a child, I would have been alarmed so the child would not be completely cognizant of his/her actions. But a teenager-she KNOWS better and was acting defiant to get attention. Well, she GOT ATTENTION!
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  colorfuloneposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Yeppers! Sensational titles saying he body slammed her is just not true at all. News sites sensationalize with words that help people see what didn't happen at all. I watched the video several times and his body language says he did not body slam her. She knocked her chair over.
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Looked more to me as he tried to lift her from the chair and she hung on to it until it fell over. A minor point either way, though.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  That is exactly what I thought, too. Add to the fact that she tried to punch him (and connected at least once), and you can see why he would be treating her like a criminal rather than as a misbehaving teenager.
  
  Honestly, what people think they are seeing in this video and what really is there seem far removed from the truth. I expect that the experts will come up with what really happened, but until then, people have become impassioned and keep using inciting language to describe the situation such as
  
  beating her
  throwing her against the wall
  getting her in a choke hold
  damaging her
  shooting her if he had a gun (which he did have, by the way)
  assaulting her
  violently attacking her
  etc., etc. etc
  
  Enough already!
  
  She is clearly to blame for causing this incident, her teacher and administrator are to blame for not being able to diffuse it and the cop is to blame for using too much force with her.
  
  In the end, he loses his job, everybody else keeps theirs and the girl's family will probably win a few million dollars after suing the school board and the police.
  
  If I were a cop, I would never again set foot in any school and would let them deal with these situations themselves. If we keep blaming the police for everything, one day there will be none left to protect us, and we'll only have ourselves to blame.
  
  Brilliant!
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  Au faitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  No one's saying the girl shouldn't be disciplined. We're saying the cop went too far. Even the cop's boss, the sheriff of Richland County who fired the cop, says police should never have been involved in the first place and that the cop was out of line. So much so the sheriff said it nauseated him.
  
  I saw the video several times including the one where they say she punched the cop. It didn't look to me like she punched the cop. It looked to me like she was trying to prevent the cop from tipping her chair over and her falling out of it. She was trying to grab onto something, even the cop or his shirt, to prevent falling.
  
  In any case, the cop went far over the line of what is acceptable. The reason for the incident was that teachers felt incompetent to handle the situation. The sheriff says they should be trained to manage things like obstinate students and so should have done themselves.
  
  Teachers escalated the situation by calling for a cop. Then the cop escalated it even more with his unacceptable behavior, which his boss, the sheriff, agrees with. CNN is playing it over and over. Neither teachers, administrators, or the cop handled the situation the way they should have.
  
  Like I said, I have myself dealt with more difficult students and there is no excuse for this incident getting blown so far out of proportion and calling police. The school board is upset and doesn't want Fields on the property of any of their schools. I doubt he'll have to worry about ever being a cop again unless some small town that can't afford to pay a decent wage is willing to hire him.
  
  Again, NO ONE is saying this girl doesn't deserve some disciplining, but what the cop did was way out of linel. By acting as he did he turned everything around and made himself the bad guy. As a professional he should have known better, but it sounds like he has trouble controlling himself and now they're even going to dig into old cases where he's gotten into trouble previously.
  
  The sheriff also said his office and the school board are going to have to have an understanding about calling cops every time they feel a little incompetent. The sheriff said Fields never should have been in that school responding to that incident in the first place and that's what I and several other people here have said.
  
  I worked with children that had behavioral issues many times. I had a busload of them for several months.
  
  There was never a reason to call the police in the first place because this girl refused to leave the room. If the teachers and administrators would have done their jobs, which apparently they weren't competent to do, we would never even have heard of this incident at all.
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  And yet...the only other suggestion I've seen here was to move the entire class into a broom closet somewhere, hoping that the girl wouldn't follow. One that I categorically reject.
  
  Do you have some other idea that would have allowed the class to proceed while NOT sending a message that authority (teachers, administrators or police) can be ignored?
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  Au faitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  If you read my comment above, you'll see that I had a worse situation than the one where the student was looking at her cell phone and refusing to leave the room. I and my driver called our supervisor who came to where we were and had some words with the student who was physically raging through the bus, not sitting quietly looking at her phone. It took about 10 minutes, maybe less, where my supervisor spoke with her, all of us heard, and my sup never once even lightly touched my student with her little finger. It was over that quick with no physical contact and we were on our way.
  
  No cops, no throwing anyone around like a rag doll. The girl in this classroom with the phone was 16. My student was 20. When people are trained to know what to do, there is no need to call cops for such a minor thing. Yes it was minor. I have had students who punched their teachers in the face as well as other people in close proximity, so the student in this situation could have been much worse. It got worse only because teachers apparently didn't know what to do and a cop was used to throwing his weight around. He won't likely be doing that anymore.
  
  She didn't slug any cops on the videos I saw. Had the cop never been called, and he never should have been according to his boss and people who have had experience with these issues, there would have been no slugging. Adults should use some common sense before putting themselves in circumstances where they're going to end up looking ignorant and incompetent.
  
  Even if she had slugged the cop, that is no reason for him to revert to his two year old character from year back and start throwing her around like a rag doll. He's supposed to be the adult, the professional, the person with his frontal lobes all formed and working. He sure didn't act like it. He was way out of line and the teachers in that school need some instruction on how to handle difficult students.
  
  If all teachers were as incompetent as the ones at this school you'd be hearing about incidents like this one dozens of times every day. Right now it's maybe a dozen times in a year because the teachers didn't even really try to manage the situation.
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  And therefore "talking" to a student that has never had any discipline in her life will always produce the necessary results.
  
  I don't think so.
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  gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Exactly, children have to be dealt with according to their understanding and their environment. There are children who understand directives one and can be reasoned with, without resorting to more severe discipline; with other children, more severe discipline is ALL they understand.
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  colorfuloneposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Here are four still images of the video footage that shows that the girl grabbed the officers arm, a strike to the chest, a strike to the neck, and a pouch to his chest from another angel.
  
  https://www.facebook.com/texassheriffsd … mp;theater
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks for posting this. It supports my point.
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  colorfuloneposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Here is another video that supports that the officer did not cause the girls chair to slam backwards. She bucked back and caused her chair to slam backwards.
  
  More of a front view.
  http://madworldnews.com/applaud-termination-officer/
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  Aime Fposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  That doesn't support it at all. It's a still shot that shows her falling backwards in the chair, doesn't suggest in any way that she was flinging herself backwards. It's just a picture with a bunch words around it meant to sway your opinion.
  
  Personally I don't care whether she pushed her chair backwards or not, if she did I'm sure she was trying to get away from the dude putting his hands on her. Do you think she threw herself across the room, too?
  
  Edit; Just saw the video from the front angle at the bottom, looks to me that he has his hand underneath her desk and pushes it up to flip it. Doesn't prove what you want it to prove, sorry.
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  And when it is all over, the student is strutting through school as a winner and the family is rich, who is to blame for teaching the kids that the repercussions for gross misbehavior (slugging a cop) is all highly positive?
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Au faitposted 8 years ago
You don't know if she's ever had any discipline or not. That's an assumption and most of the time assumptions are wrong. They're at least as bad as stereotyping.

The student I spoke of was not the only problem student we've ever had to deal with. Like I said, I had a whole bus load of behavior problem children for several months. Middle schoolers and anyone whose ever worked with students knows middle schoolers are the worse even when they're good.

Since the girl was sitting quietly looking at her phone instead of rampaging around the room clobbering people and throwing their stuff around, I'd say she had a little bit of discipline. Most of the people on here have no idea how to work with problem children and most people would be afraid to, but they write big when they don't have to prove anything.
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Aime Fposted 8 years ago
They can play on their phones if they want their parents to walk into the classroom full of their peers to remove them from school, sure. No kid I knew growing up would want that.
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Why not? Kids refusing to follow rules aren't likely to receive any disciplinary action from home, either. Let 'em walk in - nothing happens anyway!
  
  And today, that they managed to hold the teacher, the administration and the SRO cop at bay for several hours waiting for Mom and Pop makes them a hero! We have lost control of our classrooms, and the way to get it back is not to coddle the rule breakers and those defiant of all authority.
  
  You mention when you were a kid - let me tell you a tale from my own youth many decades ago in high school. We had a PE coach that was maybe 5'6'', and round as a ball, but was apparently nothing but muscle and bone. There was a retarded boy in class - always picked on, made fun of and bullied. One day the "delinquents" of the class got him in a corner and convinced him to..."stimulate"...himself. Mr. Mondale (the coach) twigged as to what was going on and went over. Reaching up, he grabbed the ringleader by the throat, picked him clear off the floor (and the kid was nearly a foot taller!) and slammed him against the wall. The kid's head literally bounced on that wall. Then coach took the retarded boy aside and talked quietly to him.
  
  The result? The tale spread like wildfire and nobody messed up in his class ever again. The bullying and teasing stopped (in that class or out of it), the boy finally made some friends and, for him, the rest of the year was quiet and enjoyable. Even the bullies stayed in school with no other (that I know of) discipline. Sometimes a little violence is quite in order - some people, including some kids, recognize nothing else.
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  gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  EXACTLY, MEET FORCE WITH FORCE! When disruptive and other behaviorally challenged students are FORCEFULLY DEALT with, such negative behavior STOPS, pure and simple! Disruptive and behaviorally challenged students can't be reasoned with but must be dealt with forcefully. That IS the ONLY thing such children UNDERSTAND!
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  rhamsonposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  That was then and this is now. With the litigious nature of our society that P.E. teacher would be fired today and maybe an assault charge thrown at him on top of that. Kids nowadays are savvy to it and will even push your buttons to make it happen. Look at what happened to the cop. Look what the parents are doing as a response. It is not worth it and taught nothing to the other kids. The other kids have learned you can do what you want and get paid in the process.
  
  Putting that kid in handcuffs and going in front of a judge as soon as possible will at least show the girl there are consequences for your actions. And the cop would still have his job. Maybe a hundred hours of picking up trash at a park or roadside will give the girl enough time to reflect on her belligerence.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, things definitely were different "then", but "then" kids did not bring weapons to school, classrooms were orderly, we had smaller, neighborhood schools and learning was taking place.
  
  Today, the hands of all involved adults have been tied by legalities and the kids basically do as they please without consequence. You can thank the lawyers and over protective and unreasonable parents for that.
  
  When corporal punishment (a nice, one time whack on the butt) went out the window, the schools began to disintegrate into what they are today...institutions where, for the most part, students are warehoused and have great difficulty learning anything due to all of the teacher shortages, daily violence and disruptions.
  
  The teachers I know who already have left the system are glad to be done with it, and those who remain can't wait to get out. Many don't even make it through year one. Most quit by year five.
  
  It used to be hard to find a teaching job. Today, school districts are begging for teachers.
  
  If things continue as they are, before long the only teachers will be untrained, uneducated substitutes because those who are qualified will no longer want the job. It's already happening, thanks to situations like this one.
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Farawaytreeposted 8 years ago
It was clear from the video to me that the cop lost his temper so, at that time, unless she was attacking him, he had no provocation for the force of his actions.
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TheHipHopRecordsposted 8 years ago
As a black man - No doubt this will be justified like pretty much all violent action is when it comes to we black people.

So the officer was threatened by a teen-aged unarmed girl - hence the need to assert his authority. I mean c'mon, she could have been a terrorist, hiding her Jihadist AK-47 in her vagina, or perhaps underneath her flip-flops.

It's asinine that he restrained her at all. It's callous disregard of the health and safety of a child to put your entire body weight on her with your knees. It honestly shouldn't even take him both hands to restrain someone that size.

O sorry I forgot. She's black. She has super human negro strength in the cops mind.

And I don't for a second believe he would have acted the same way if she had been white. He belongs in jail, not on the unemployment line.

But if whites are afraid of Blacks and depend on the police to keep us down, then whites want to give the police a completely unaccountable hand when it comes to Black people. That is why the police are off the chain in the first place. It is not some accident.

He could have broken that girls neck and If she would have fought him, he would have shot her in the classroom and of course 9..9% of whites would have justified that too.

Geez - nope, no race problem in Amurka
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  Credence2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Tell it like it is!!
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PrettyPantherposted 8 years ago
All I can say is, if anyone had done that to my kid, ANYONE, I would press charges. I cannot believe people are defending Officer Slam's (not my moniker, by the way) actions. So, you want adults to address nonviolent resistance by teenagers with body slamming. Seems legit.

See, I have officially progressed into sarcasm and ridicule, because the many justifications given for this man's actions are regressive, authoritarian excuses for abuse. This girl was verbally defiant, not physically aggressive or a danger to anyone. Surely, a grown-ass adult can deal with that. Surely.
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  Aime Fposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Agree completely. I wouln't want anyone's money, but I would certainly want someone who treated my child that way to suffer consequences (you know, like everyone here is so intent that children should. Let's teach them that adults get punished for their crappy behaviour too!).
  
  I would absolutely 100% support a teacher in this situation. If I received a phone call from my daughter's school in this situation I would pick her up, take away her phone for a period of time as punishment, and require her to apologize to her teacher. Then she would learn that if she doesn't follow the rules regarding her phone usage, she doesn't get to use the phone. Doesn't that make more sense than physically assaulting her?
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  PrettyPantherposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, a punishment to fit the crime. Imagine that! Apparently, some other adults can't.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Perhaps this is a good point to make for allowing teachers to have telephones in their classrooms!
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  rebekahELLEposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I'm pretty amazed at those defending the actions of this officer. Just watching the video gives me goose bumps. A major school administration fail! It should have been handled without any assistance from the SRO who obviously missed the training on how to handle confrontational situations. It's a sad day in America when we think this is acceptable.
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  Au faitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  RebekahElle, totally agree with you.
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colorfuloneposted 8 years ago
It is interesting to read all of the differing opinions, beliefs, and especially what people think they saw watching the same videos. We really do filter information through our own learned environments to a great degree.

Just to make things a little more interesting...I wonder what responses I would get if I suggested this was a staged event in a growing list of many events that occur on a regular bases.

Could it be a hoax? (do I need to duck)
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I doubt it was a hoax, but the whole situation does make one consider the fact that there may have been some sort of agenda going on here. Why else, other than perhaps mental deficiency, would any thinking person purposely cause problems for himself? Is it simply that the girl craved attention and knew this was the fastest way to get it? We'll probably never know, but in any event, I doubt she ever intended for things to go as far as they did.
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  Farawaytreeposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, and what are the odds her family is going to get a huge settlement... hmmm?
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  PrettyPantherposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  The girl is an orphan who lives in foster care.
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  Farawaytreeposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Interesting. Well, I think she has a lawyer so, time will tell if she sues.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  That's interesting because yesterday they interviewed her mother on TV!
  
  Update:
  
  I just read the report about her mother passing away. That must have been her foster mother I saw. If in fact she recently lost her mother, this was a child in crisis who should have had professional counseling from those in charge of her care. Had this been done, the whole situation probably would never have happened.
  
  Somebody clearly was not doing his job and allowed her to slip through the cracks. Furthermore, her teachers should have been informed about her situation before she ever entered class...oops, nobody told them probably because it would be an invasion of her privacy.
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  Farawaytreeposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  LOL, well in any case, she, her family, SOMEONE, stands to make a ton of money off this. Hello lawsuit!
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  Credence2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  By the way, you have got some great articles about living the life on the road, I wish that I could be you!!
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Oh no you don't! I'm a 72 year old grandmother with health problems in dozens. Traveling by RV is now the ONLY way I can travel! I'd give it up in a minute to be young and healthy again!
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  Credence2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  On the contrary madam, you got the best of all possible worlds, freedom is worth a lot these days. It has a price that transcends the mere possession of lots of money. How much of your health would you barter to be shackled up on the 8-5 grind again? You are the modern day Charles Kuralt, getting a taste of the American spirit with each new stop. Oh, the places youve seen and stories you could tell.....
  
  But I am sorry that you are not well, it always seems that when you get something good, something else is taken away
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Good point. It's been a long time since I had to go to work on a job, and I must admit that a certain level of freedom is good to have. Do love that RV life!
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  Credence2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Absolutely, the only real currency of uncomparable value is your time and the ability to use this finite resource the way you want.
  
  I am a retired civil servant who, in theory, could do what your doing. But my spouse is of poor health and on account of that I have to go into nesting mode, being stationary as so many others are forced to do due to economic circumstances
  
  I get to live out some of my fantasies and wonderlust through you sharing your experiences. It is one hell of a big country, thanks again!!
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  gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  So sorry to hear of your health, Timetraveler2. You are 72 years young and have a lot of years ahead of you.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks. Young? Hardly...but I'm trying to make the best of things, as all older people do. Sweet of you to say these things to me. A kind word is always appreciated.
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  Aime Fposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Here's something we can agree on.
  
  I lost my father when I was 16 and school was rough for months after it happened. I'm so thankful that my teachers knew about it because they were very supportive and cut me some slack when I was visibly anxious and disengaged. I never broke any rules or challenged any teachers but people handle these things differently. If she felt that no one was there for her it actually makes a lot of sense that she would be fighting authority figures.
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  gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  When children are hurt and no one is there for them to discuss their problems, they use that hurt to act out. Children need individualized attention and caring in order to be whole people. Many public schools, especially those in lower income areas, do not have such resources as the staff are overtaxed dealing student and school resources.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I agree up to your last statement. What does "fighting authority figures" have to do with grieving? You lost me on that one. You just said that you did not cause problems during your grieving period, but would you have if your teachers did not know your situation? A "yes" would very much surprise me.
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  Aime Fposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  No, because I had a mother who was there to support me. This girl has no one and she probably feels it immensely. Whether it's rational or not, sometimes death can feel like abandonment, and often feelings of abandonment translate to lashing out.
  
  I can't say how I would react in her specific situation because adolescence can be unpredictable and grief can be unpredictable... put the two together and I'm not sure anyone could fairly say how they'd be acting under certain circumstances unless they were in them.
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  gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  This girl was in crisis and teachers and administrators should have been alerted to this. This child was hurting but she could not vocalize her hurt. However, public schools simply do not have the resources to help this child. Some teacher should have reached out to her. There was a subconscious reason why she acted the way she did. The teacher should have taken her aside to talk to her.
  
  The child should have been reached way before to get at the root of the problem. If this was done, she would not be as problematic as she was because she knew that some adult cared. Also, if someone got at the root of her angst, the situation would not have escalated to what it is now. This child was HURTING and children who are hurt with no one to discuss their problems with usually act out.
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  Credence2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Cmon, Time traveler, you were an educator and know the unruly defiant nature of the adolescent? That challenge to authority is natural and must be dealt with by adults in an adult way. Throwing around a mouthy teenage girl by the brute of an officer could well have seriously injured her in addition to opening the school and its administrators to lawsuits associated with poor judgement.
  
  You wouldn't want your daughter thrown around like a rag doll, regardless of the verbal and childish provocation by the student. And you never did answer why did this officer arrest the other girl for recording the incident? And from where does that authority come.
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  colorfuloneposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  There is some kind of agenda for sure. The teen was looking for attention but I'm not sure what confront, power or pleasure she gained from her actions.
  
  The thing is if that was a white student and a black cop this story would not be covered on MSM, if it was it would get about 2 minutes. They did not present all the facts which is common. There may be another agenda being played out because the MSM will cover a story and sensationalizes it. Cop haters love this kind of story.
  
  Hillary Clinton came out swinging when the story first broke (without all the facts) inciting blacks and cop haters. A political agenda emerges that causes more division, less trust, and more hate?
  
  I wonder...a distraction? (Republican debt, which was a sham because of the interviewers)
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colorfuloneposted 8 years ago
It is sad when news stories like this do not get covered on MSM. In this video a 62 year old teacher gets slammed by a student. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRrU0R6pew0

This is a normal everyday occurrence but we don't hear about it. I have to ask why not? Because it doesn't fit a political agenda, I think.

Anyway, this is why I have no problem with that SRO dragging that girl across the classroom floor. If these troubled kids are allowed to do what they want it leads to kids treating authority figures horribly. It has to be stopped and the kids need to know there will be consequences for their action.
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  Aime Fposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  For the billionth time, consequences can come in forms other than throwing kids across rooms.
  
  Maybe in schools where this kind of thing is common, all teachers should be trained the same as the teachers who work at schools specific to "troubled" children are.
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, they can. And so far the "consequences" proposed are to stop the class and talk to the child or to allow the disruption to continue until Mom or Dad gets there. While everyone else in the school learns that the rules mean nothing.
  
  Sure, we could require such training of teachers, and cut class size to a quarter of what it is (as is done with "troubled" kids) along the way. Who will pay for it all? Personally I find it more responsible of society to teach kids respect for authority.
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  Aime Fposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  How is having a child removed from class by their parents and/or having the teacher speak to them privately teaching everyone that they don't have to follow rules? They're still consequences. I think most children don't need the threat of being flung across the room to follow the rules. Having your parents come into a classroom to remove you would've been considered highly embarrassing by most kids I went to school with. And if not, their parents can still deal with at as they see fit once they're home.
  
  Personally I don't think smacking a kid teaches them to respect authority. I think it teaches them that authority will smack them if they don't listen. Sure, it might work short-term, they might not act out in class. But long-term? Not so much. Instrinsic motivation (not wanting to cause problems for someone you actually truly respect) is far more powerful and likely to last than external motivation (not wanting to cause problems because you don't want to get hit). I honestly don't see how someone could respect anyone who treated this girl the way that cop did. It's just fear that motivates them, and that is far from ideal.
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  Credence2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  If I were dragged home under such circumstances by my parents, you can bet that there was going to be hell to pay when I got there
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  Aime Fposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Gosh, nothing put me in my place faster than the disappointed glare that my mother perfected.
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  rhamsonposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Do I hear remnants of "it takes a village"?
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Good point. If societal (or school) rules are too lax or unenforced the child will learn they need not follow what rules there are. Regardless of what Mom and Dad have taught them.
  
  And yes, we have a very definite problem there. Even if a rule IS "enforced" the consequences of not following it are too small in too many cases.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  What interested me about this video was that not one student chose to step in and try to help the teacher. What does this tell you about the values they hold?
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Lazaro DeJesusposted 8 years ago
The girl punched the cop as he tryed to remove her. His anger increased during that point and he slung her across the classroom. Her hitting him does not suggest that the officer was in the right in anyway. He should have remained professional in dealing with the disrespectful student.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  At the point where she struck him (which followed an act of open defiance), to him she was no longer just a kid in a classroom. She was under arrest, and he was treating her as he would any criminal. This is what all officers are trained to do, and he did it. A number of legal experts concur and have stated that he was within his rights to do so.
  
  Should he have used better judgement? It's easy to stand at a distance and say yes, but in the heat of the moment, his reflexes took over.
  
  No matter who you are or what your circumstances are, you need to learn not to cause problems for yourself just because in your mind you think you are right. Our schools are not mental institutions, and teachers should not be expected to be psychologists or mind readers.
  
  I once had a student who was deaf, but never told me. Her grades were terrible! Her mother called me, all upset of course, wondering why I would "pick on" her handicapped child. Once I told her that I had never been informed of this problem (by the girl, the mother or the school), I was able to make sure I always stood facing her so that she could read my lips. She turned out to be an excellent student.
  
  My point here is that it was someone's responsibility to communicate to the teacher that the girl had just suffered a great tragedy. Had he known this, I'm sure he would have handled the situation differently. I'm also sure the cop would never have been called, but if so, if he also had known, he might have behaved differently.
  
  There are a lot of "ifs" in this post, but it really upsets me that everybody is making the officer out to be a demon when he is not the only one who caused this problem. Because of this, he loses his career, and everybody else just continues on as before, except for the girl, who will probably get rich from this.
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Alphadogg16posted 8 years ago
While I have a serious problem with the way he removed the student, at the same time there is a big problem with kids today not respecting authority. It's not the schools/teachers responsibility to teach respect and morals, that starts at home, with parenting. There is no discipline or accountability in a lot of the young generation, and it falls directly onto parenting/up bringing. That would never happen to one of my children because my kids would never be disrespectful to authorities.
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  Don Wposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  All very sensible, except this girls parents are reportedly both dead, her mother recently. Are young people not allowed to suffer mood swings, or depression, or bereavement, or just have bad days following the recent death of a parent and apparently being placed into foster care? Is violent assault the best way to support a young person who is going through that? Did any of the 'adults' in that room consider that the girl's lack of engagement might be a sign of emotional distress? Did anyone think she might have just needed someone in that moment to cut her some slack? Did anyone think that a tiny bit of compassion might have helped? Did anyone think. . . ? Apparently not. "Not respecting authority" is all they, and you it seems, could see.
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  PrettyPantherposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Spot on.
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Is every student given a mental health exam upon entering the school each day and the results of the emotional index provided to every adult in the building? Is the school now responsible to track the emotional health of every student, every possible traumatic event in their life, and stop enforcing rules until they get over it?
  
  I think not. At the same time, if a teacher or administrator (or even the SRO) did know of the parents (recent, meaning a few days), they would be remiss if they did not do just that.
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  Don Wposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  You don't need to give every student a mental health exam. You just need to understand the difference between a disciplinary incident (are rebellious, disrespectful teenagers really that much of a novelty where they live?) and criminal behaviour. A little empathy to identify that someone may be emotionally distressed is not unreasonable either. So no, nothing special required. Just basic humanity.
  
  And this girl's reported circumstances are exactly why it's a bad idea to jump to conclusions.
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Same question I've asked several times in this thread, Don - what is the solution to a teen (or anyone else) that refuses to follow the "law"? Ignore it? Talk pretty to her? Allow it to continue, "infecting" the rest of the kids with the same syndrome? Ask her to pretty please go stand in the corner?
  
  What is it, if not removal from the premises? Will empathy reinforce to the other kids that it's not all right, or exacerbate an already intolerable discipline problem in our schools? Teens are "emotionally distressed" most of the time - should we just ignore their transgressions?
  
  No, I support this cop's intentions - to remove her from the classroom - if not the result. And the result would not have happened were the kids generally respectful of authority - we do them and us both a great disservice by allowing such behavior to have no consequences.
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  Don Wposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  You are jumping to conclusions. Did anyone ask why she was not engaging? Did anyone ask why she did not want to leave the room? Did anyone take a minute to talk with her quietly, find out what the situation was? If you know the answers to these questions, then where did you get that information? If you don't, then why are you assuming none of those things would have helped? In the Sheriff's own words:
  
  "She was just being non compliant and disrespectful. You try to use verbal commands, you try to do it verbally and you try to de-escalate instead of escalate it." (Leon Lott, Richland County Sheriff)
  
  But let's assume the use of force was the only available option. Even when that's the case, law enforcement officers are trained in methods that ensure non lethal force is used in a way that optimizes the safety of the person using it, and the person it is being applied to, as stated by the Sheriff: "And then when you do have to put your hands on someone there's techniques that we're taught. There's pressure points, there's other things that you use." (Leon Lott, Richland County Sheriff)
  
  So let's be clear, Ben Fields was not fired for doing his job. He was fired for doing his job improperly, as per the Sheriff's comments: "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" (Leon Lott, Richland County Sheriff). It remains to be seen whether he will be charged with any crime.
  
  However you look at this, the failures that led to this situation do not start and end solely with the student. I'd like to know:
  
  What is the interface between the South Carolina Department of Social Services, who manage foster care children, and the school? Was the school advised that this student may be experiencing emotional difficulties due to her circumstances? If not, why not?
  
  Did the teacher and the administrator do anything other than call the police, and tell the girl to leave the class?
  
  If the school has "separate protocols for disciplinary incidents and criminal behaviour", were the teacher and administrator aware of that? If not, why not? If so, why was the correct protocol not used?
  
  Are the actions of the teacher and administrator being reviewed to ensure any opportunities for improvement in the way they managed the incident are identified and acted upon? If not, why not?
  
  Even when the Deputy decided to go "hands on", why did he not use the methods he was trained to use?
  
  Why is "disturbing class" even a criminal offense?
  
  Students have said the girl didn't say anything to anyone, and was seated the whole time. How is sitting down and being silent "disturbing class"?
  
  I don't expect you to have the answers to these questions, but I hope they show that "disrespect for authority" is the least of the issues this incident highlights. Anyone, at any given time, could show "disrespect for authority", for any number of reasons, because we are human, not robots. If people in positions of authority are so insecure that they cannot safely handle a teenage girl who (for whatever reason) challenges their authority, then I question whether those people should be in positions of authority in the first place.
  
  And FYI, there is a guide produced by the Department of Education specifically about school discipline. As part of the action step on page 8 it says: "Appropriately designed partnerships with local mental health agencies can assist schools in identifying students coping with trauma, or mental health or emotional issues. In addition, these partnerships may allow schools to expand the range of targeted and intensive interventions that the school offers as part of its tiered supports" (1). So yes, if the reports about this student's personal circumstances are accurate, there is an expectation on the school to be supportive (which would probably more productive than throwing the girl across the room!)
  
  (1) http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/scho … ciples.pdf
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  Au faitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Don W, yes, yes, yes !!! But almost no one here wants to hear reason. They want their pound of flesh whatever it takes, no matter what. You are correct. Not one of these people demanding that pound of flesh should ever be in charge of anyone. Agree with every word you've written here in this discussion.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Seems the only person giving a pound of flesh is the police officer!
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  You should bear in mind that the teacher was in a room with a bunch of teenagers he had to control, and his mind was on doing that as well as teaching his lesson. That is what he is supposed to do.
  
  The girl was breaking school rules. His job is to enforce them. It should have been the easiest thing in the world to do, but the girl, for her own reasons, chose to defy.
  
  Regardless of her problems, this type of behavior cannot be tolerated. If it is, you might as well thrown education right out the window.
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  Don Wposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  "Breaking school rules" is age-appropriate behaviour for a teenager, and it should not be a criminal offense. And the American Federation of Teachers disagrees with your view that personal problems faced by some teenagers should be ignored in favor of zero tolerance:
  
  "Zero tolerance is a trap door to the juvenile justice system . . . [w]e need to be talking about what these alternatives look like. What does it mean to create a climate in schools where there is trust between adults and students . . . One of the ways to help create that type of school is to ensure that staff hired to serve as security personnel are appropriately trained to interact and communicate with students".(1)
  
  And:
  
  "You give up on no children. No matter what baggage children bring to the classroom, it's our responsibility as educators to educate them out of their situation." (2)
  
  Antiquated "zero-tolerance" policies can be counter-productive and actively harmful, as this incident shows. If we want to live in a peaceful society, we need to teach kids how to resolve conflicts peacefully. You don't do that by throwing students across the room.
  
  And yes, the alternatives do work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwI3rMCJDAc
  
  (1) http://www.aft.org/news/communication-r … WV6bi.dpuf
  (2) http://www.aft.org/news/communication-r … WV6bi.dpuf
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Nobody said that breaking school rules is a criminal offense. Non compliance with a police officer's directive and assaulting him are. Let's not confuse the two.
  
  I spent a good number of years teaching at risk kids and was successful because
  
  the class sizes were small, which gave me the opportunity to quickly get to know my kids,
  paperwork was limited, which gave me time to communicate with parents
  I could schedule my own day and plan creative, image building assignments without having to adhere strictly to the school curriculum.
  
  Most teachers do not and cannot do these things. Therefore, it is very difficult for them to know their students. The average teacher has about 150 kids per day, many of whom come and go during the school year. Where I am, that means about 50%.
  
  Of course communicating and allowing students to express their feelings and discuss things is the best way to bring good discipline because it builds respect and confidence.
  
  However, this type of setup is very expensive, so most schools cannot afford it.
  
  So, you get a new, troubled kid, an uninformed teacher, an inept staff and an SRO who, without knowing all of the circumstances, is called in to take control. It's a very bad mix, any way you look at it.
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  Don Wposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I'm saying it's a criminal offense, because it is. It is a crime in South Carolina to "disturb" school, or act "obnoxiously" on school premises, under penalty of a $1000 fine or 90 days in jail:
  
  "SECTION 16-17-420. Disturbing schools; summary court jurisdiction.
  
  (A) It shall be unlawful:
  
  (1) for any person wilfully or unnecessarily (a) to interfere with or to disturb in any way or in any place the students or teachers of any school or college in this State, (b) to loiter about such school or college premises or (c) to act in an obnoxious manner thereon; or
  
  (2) for any person to (a) enter upon any such school or college premises or (b) loiter around the premises, except on business, without the permission of the principal or president in charge.
  
  (B) Any person violating any of the provisions of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, on conviction thereof, shall pay a fine of not more than one thousand dollars or be imprisoned in the county jail for not more than ninety days.
  
  (C) The summary courts are vested with jurisdiction to hear and dispose of cases involving a violation of this section. If the person is a child as defined by Section 63-19-20, jurisdiction must remain vested in the Family Court."(1)
  
  So being "obnoxious" on school premises (an age-appropriate behaviour for every teen on the planet) is literally a crime in SC. A young person can gain a criminal record that can impact their prospects, just for talking back to a teacher in class. That's ridiculous.
  
  "It's a very bad mix, any way you look at it." Exactly my point. The responsibility for this incident does not start and end with the student. There should be an urgent review of the related systems, policies and disciplinary processes in the school, and within the Sheriff's office to reduce the likelihood of a similar incident happening in the future, and I hope the District Superintendent and the County Sheriff have directed their staff to undertake that review.The State legislature should also consider repealing (or at the very least) amending their ridiculous "disturbing schools" law that effectively criminalizes being a kid.
  
  (1)http://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t16c017.php
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I wasn't aware of these laws, but I can understand why they exist. If this is the case, then the officer had every right to do what he did...which does not mean that he should have done things that way, but it does mean that he should not have been fired.
  
  I don't know if you have ever been in a classroom, but as a 26 year teaching veteran I can tell you it is no easy job. It grows worse daily.
  
  If we ease up on the laws and continue to make excuses for poor behavior, we can kiss our school systems goodbye. Nobody will want to teach in them, and the public will be able to look forward to an unskilled, uneducated labor force that will end up on welfare and very likely be coming through our back doors to steal what we have.
  
  You're not going to see SC change the laws, and I don't blame them. They are not ridiculous. What is so ridiculous about expecting young people to come to school, sit down, shut up and do their work? Is it so hard for them to do? Is it so hard for them to follow the rules? If it is, we are doomed as a society.
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  Don Wposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  You are rightly proud of being a 26 year teaching veteran. However, the man who fired Ben Fields, County Sheriff Leon Lott, is a 40 year law enforcement veteran. Therefore, and no disrespect intended, I believe he is better qualified to judge whether or not his Deputy conducted himself properly, and whether his Deputy's conduct warranted him being fired. As it is, Sheriff Lott did not fire Ben Fields for doing his job, he fired him for doing his job improperly, based on his, and the Sheriff's Office's knowledge and experience of law enforcement practices.
  
  I don't think anyone underestimates the difficulty of teaching, and it's right to acknowledge that difficulty. But it is also right acknowledge the unique difficulties of being a teenager in 2015, and experiencing very difficult personal circumstances. The class teacher, the administrator, the deputy all had the training and support of their respective institutions behind them. Does anyone know what support this young girl had, if any?
  
  And why is it that talking about the difficulties of teaching is fine, but when it comes to talking about the difficulties of students, you think that's just making "excuses for poor behaviour". By the same token, we could say that talking about the difficulties of teaching is just making excuses for poor teaching. It works both ways.
  
  What is ridiculous about that law? You really have to ask? How about the fact that it criminalizes age-appropriate behaviour. In effect it criminalizes being a child, and it criminalizes being a teenager. Do you genuinely not see the problem? The American Federation of Teachers may be able to explain it better:
  
  "Once a youth has had contact with law enforcement or has been placed into a juvenile justice facility, the stigma cannot be erased; this sets the trajectory for ongoing negative and disruptive contact with school personnel, law enforcement, peers and families".(1)
  
  Or perhaps this photo may help (this child is diagnosed with ADHD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72vu6nxZX58)
  
  I would question the sense of appropriateness in relation to law enforcement and teaching, of anyone who sees nothing wrong with this.
  
  And if none of that is clear enough, perhaps the words of the executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers will explain it better:
  
  "Officers that are not properly trained are getting pulled into these situations. School discipline is not the role of the school resource officer." (my emphasis)
  
  I'm not sure how to make the point any clearer.
  
  We all know that having people in positions of authority is a part of living in society, and learning to engage with authority is an important part of civic education. But when authority is used inappropriately, or used to harm people who may be experiencing difficulty or who have a disability and may need help, then that is an abuse of authority, and it's an abuse of public trust. The authority of the teacher, administrator and the Deputy involved in this incident, comes from the consent of the public. So it is right and proper to expect their actions to be scrutinized by the public, and for the public to be able to challenge behaviour that is deemed to be excessively violent, or otherwise inappropriate. That is what is happening with this incident, and others, and it's a good thing.
  
  (1) http://www.aft.org/position/school-disc … 8Opu2.dpuf
  (2) http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/speced/2 … t_dra.html
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  rebekahELLEposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Thanks for including these links and for expressing the feelings that many of us have towards this incident. School discipline is often like a two-edged sword in how it's implemented. There needs to be more funding for on-going professional development in regard to positive classroom management skills. Discipline plans can't be archaic and punitive. I would refuse to have my child in a school system where 'disruptive' behavior is a criminal offense. There's going to be disruptive behavior in schools. There always has been. When schools use competition/reward/punishment as a management implementation, they set themselves up for helping to churn out more and more students who simply give up and become what a system tells them they are, disruptive losers. It starts early in the preschool programs with treasure chests, and stop light charts, etc. I refused to use them in my classrooms.
  I like the plans set out by the AFT in the first link you provided. The first one fully implemented would be a great start.
  Provide ongoing professional development and training, aligned with school and district reform goals, to all school staff, with a focus on evidenced-based positive school discipline, conflict resolution, cultural relevancy and responsiveness, behavior management, social justice and equity.
  Does anyone really want their children/grandchildren to be educated in a school where untrained officers are brought in to throw their child across the room? An SRO known as Officer Slam? Really??
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  Don Wposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  My thoughts exactly. If we want a peaceful society, doesn't that start with teaching children how to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence?
  
  There's a good Tedx talk about an alternative to the broken "zero tolerance" policies of the past.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqktOiYG5NM
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  Kathryn L Hillposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  +1
  
  The teacher who is speaking at this Ted event has many positive solutions involving "Restorative Justice."
  Totally worth watching.
  The principals and teachers of every school in the nation should watch it.
  The principles she clearly discusses would work anywhere.
  TWISI
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Exactly when did I ever say that personal problems of some students should be ignored because of zero tolerance policies? You are sorely mistaken if you think I said that. Of course personal issues matter, but so do rules and regulations because we need to have order, not chaos.
  
  My view is that regardless of personal problems, students need to follow the rules. This does not mean we don't try to address their problems. It means that they have to hold up their end.
  
  If they were working on jobs and refused to do what their boss told them to do because they were having problems, how long do you think they would remain employed?
  
  The job of schools is to prepare kids to face the real world, and learning self discipline and acceptable
  behavior is part of that.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  You cannot "help" someone who is in crisis if you do not know that they are. This girl was new to the school. Nobody informed the teacher of her circumstances. Teachers are not mind readers.
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  RTalloniposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  The facts of her background (that her parents died, mother recently) highlight the importance of getting the facts before speaking out about details of events that occur. Perhaps SROs will decide to refuse to intervene until they have background information on students they are called to confront, except, of course, in cases where others are obviously in danger. It seems schools and SROs obviously need more communication about individuals and situations before they interact with students. One big issue this event points out is that since student behaviors are too often so bad that these officers are required, we want students who will do what is right to trust the officers. Most officers want that, too, so schools/teachers should be listening to them if they want their help.
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  rhamsonposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I think the name of the job as an SRO speaks for itself as far as getting involved in a physical confrontation with a student. Unless the offending student has a weapon or attacks some other individual including the SRO, no immediate physical interjection should be attempted. The safety of all including the offender should be the most important duty of the SRO. It is not up to the SRO to teach the offender a "lesson"
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  gmwilliamsposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  +1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000!
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meganelijahposted 8 years ago
omg that is so mean I am only in the 8th grade
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  rhamsonposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  As a young person I am curious as to what your thoughts are on the incident. Was the police officer correct in tossing the student across the room? Or was the student correct in disobeying the directions?
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  littlethingposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I graduated two years ago. I went to a small, rural high school. Let's just put it this way: the inmates ran the asylum. I saw incidents where the authority did back down, and made the situation worse in many ways. I did see rules being unfairly enforced, or not enforced at all. The lack of respect for any authority, coupled with the students knowing they could get away with practically anything made it....difficult, let's say. I have seen students attack adults and cause injury. If she did attack the officer, then I do think the officer had the right to use force. In my mind, attacking an officer of the law is assault, plain and simple.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  It's refreshing to hear the viewpoint of a young person about this issue, especially one who has an "inside" view of what really goes on. I don't think your school is unusual. Until order is restored, nobody will learn anything and the whole of society will suffer. I agree with you 100%.
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Haroon Shehzadposted 8 years ago
I am a teacher and I know how rebellious some students can be but the problem is that parents expect from teachers that they will somehow tame their child without even touching him. Teacher is a human and like all other people he can become hyper. I think teaching has become a very difficult profession these days
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  rhamsonposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I can understand the frustration a teacher must endure even though I have not taught very much in a classroom environment. As a tradesman I have taught many aspiring tradesmen but in an employee situation where they were hired to be under my supervision. I have also taught high school band students and can relate if only slightly to the ruminations of a pre adult mind.
  
  The one thing we try to teach our children is to settle their issues in a non violent way. If you can work out your problem with another by dialog and respect you can avoid physical conflict. Of course there are the bullies in school who will put your bravery to a test and that is entirely different. My momma always taught me to never start a fight but if one gets started by the other guy you make sure you finish it.
  
  By taking the confrontation to the next level without provocation the police officer sent a message that if you meet a situation you wish to control you are correct in using physical force. The rest of the kids saw it and now the lawyers are going to mop up the floor with it. This is typical of the mess we have today in society.
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Well said...right up to the point where there was no provocation. There was plenty of provocation for a reasoned response and disciplinary action.
  
  Here. Here is what happens when we allow the flaunting of authority:
  
  http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2015/10/30/mesq … -standoff/
  
  After running a red light (using a cell phone) and being told to stop (give it to the teacher/leave class) the man (girl) refused and ran (sat). Eventually he threatened the cops (slugged the SRO) and was shot (violently removed). Because he flaunted authority, a man is dead (girl upset and slightly injured). Not because he ran a stop light (used a cell phone), but because he (she) refused any authority over him (her).
  
  And we're going to reinforce that such action is acceptable: the girl is a hero now, the cop fired for not maintaining physical control of a "suspect" and the family will be rich. We're teaching kids that ignoring/threatening authority is fine and pays big dividends...right up to the point they're shot dead because of it.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  +1
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  rhamsonposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  What was the provocation? She retaliated to being slammed on the floor? All this proves is you can't fix stupid on both of these individuals part. Your wanting to prove what can result in not "fixing" this at that moment only proves that you want others to manhandle kids in the absence of their parent or guardian. It is not the job of the police to teach your children anything. It is their job to maintain the peace and protect us. He should have called the parents and if they would not respond to the situation he should have called CPS to either arrest the child or take them where the CPS official told him to.
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Come on Rhamson - you know very well the provocation was refusing to give up contraband and refusing to follow orders to leave the classroom. Followed by violence against a cop.
  
  As far as the job of the cop - it is not to ignore infractions and allow disruption of a classroom. It is to handle such things as expeditiously as possible and return control to the teacher. Saying that he should allow disruption to continue until parents, CPS or some other authority arrived (to be again ignored) simply doesn't make sense. It's HIS job, not that of CPS, to control the classroom in the event teacher and administrators cannot do so.
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  rhamsonposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  So expediency determines the actions of the SRO? Lack of respect determines whether one is physically attacked? Like I said before if the distraction was so bad as a teacher I would have emptied the classroom to maybe the auditorium and discussed what just happened and how the students would have reacted. Then the SRO would have had time to get the right people on the scene and the situation rectified.
  
  Expediency got that child in the park in Cleveland killed. Have we learned nothing?
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  Credence2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Obviously not, the hasty display of poor judgement got a 12 year old killed for playing with a toy gun. So many of these things are truly not as unavoidable and random as certain people would have us believe , but can be defused by a little thinking by adults and paid professionals prior to their taking action. Your suggestion of emptying the room of those not involved when confrontation levels start to go into the stratosphere was a good one. If they were smart they might have done this and there would not now be a video record that is damning this officer and incriminates him to point where no responsible authority could let him keep his job.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  When these things happen in a classroom, they escalate rapidly. Unfortunately, when this happens, the results are not good.
  
  Teenagers are extremely volatile, so it is hard to know how they will react in any given situation. Thought processes are often much slower than they need to be when people are suddenly faced with crisis situations, regardless of how well they may have been trained.
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  Credence2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  How true, Traveler. But adults and professionals should have a plan to compensate for the volatile and unexpected. We all should be carefully thinking about how to best increase the pressure to get the student to comply in a serious of stages, all well considered, a plan having been worked out to deal with such a crisis situation which is certainly not one to be considered unlikely in an environment where volatile and irresponsible teens are all over the place.
  
  Rash behavior makes a problem that could be managed, unmanageable and exponentially increases problems for both sides involved.
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I'd have to say there WAS a plan: at the extreme end of disruptive behavior call the cops and have the kid removed. Which is what was done.
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  Credence2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  It was the wrong approach (plan), exposing the school and administrators to liability if the kid was injured in a skuffle that may have well been avoided. Time to return to the drawing board? Yes, Wilderness, the parents should have been called or the attempt made to avoid the physical confrontation that could well have injured this girl and has cost the officer his job. I think we could, in the face of what was at stake, put the learning process on hold for a little bit. I am sure that the circumstances presented by the mouthy teen lady was not something that occurs everyday.
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  ex·pe·di·tious
  [ˌekspəˈdiSHəs]
  ADJECTIVE
  done with speed and efficiency:
  
  Nobody said anything about being convenient, only in a timely manner.
  
  None of the middle schools around me have auditoriums. A gym, yes, that is full of kids doing PE. All of the schools are overfull; there ARE no empty spaces to transfer a classroom full of kids into. Not, anyway, and keep the class going.
  
  So you may have taken the kids outside in the rain and had a talk with them about their classmate. Somehow I don't see that as a reasonable solution every time some kid is disruptive. It would be a good way to teach the kids how to avoid a test they didn't want to take, though!
  
  But you have another problem as well; what to do when the girl gets up and joins the crowd leaving the room. That would be the expected result of transferring a class, I think.
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  rhamsonposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  If all you want to do is shoot holes in possible scenarios then you will be successful on every front. Your reasoning only leaves the SRO one action. Throw the girl on the ground and let the course that took place happen. Perhaps the auditorium was non existent and maybe the gym was full and it was probably raining outside and maybe she would get up out of her seat and etc. Is there nothing else but to throw the girl on the ground and cuff her on the spot? Anything could have taken place but two things did not happen. The girl did not pull a weapon and she basically held a sit in. You cannot treat the girl like one who has a weapon or is acting out on another student. Your response is only argumentative and does not address the issue. The issue being what do you do with an adolescent that won't cooperate? Your answer is throw them to the floor and arrest them. Good lesson!
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  You're almost there. So far everything suggested in this forum has been rather nonsensical. It ranges from do nothing, to stop class until CPS gets there, to talk to the girl in the hopes she will then behave, to stop class and move it to another (likely nonexistent) location with a forlorn hope the girl won't tag along, etc.
  
  Now you're angry because nothing proposed is worth anything. You demand that something besides enforce rules be done, but can propose nothing of any value and attack me because of that failure. Argumentative, in other words, with a constant demand that something else be done but without any good suggestions as to what it might be. All while ignoring the effect of any actions on other students (you might want to look at how the event impressed other students - http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/30/us/south- … index.html ).
  
  Want to try again with another alternate action that will reinforce to other students that rules must be followed while ending the disruption and allowing class to continue?
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  rhamsonposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I am not angry at a thing. I am sorry if you feel that I gave that impression. For some odd reason you think the SRO showing up is not an indication to the other students something is wrong. Making the class leave while the problem is taken care of is also a useless lesson? Returning to the classroom with the girl removed and maybe for a few days is not something of a lesson?
  
  Your answer to the problem is get the big white cop to come in and manhandle the girl gave the girl and the other children what impression? The wrong one I can assure you. 100 students protesting the situation is what percentage of the community? The racial card is going to be played once again and nothing will be gained but a gaff off to being another white cop on black kid scenario. That is what was accomplished in this situation. Good lesson Wilderness! Every other solution I have brought up is a positive and useful lesson for both the girl and the class. Your solution only exacerbates the problem we have with race relations between the police and the black community.
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  Aime Fposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  They're nonsensical to you but a lot of us have said that we think calling a student's parents/finding a way to handle this verbally would be effective. You have NO IDEA if those things would have worked in this situation because no one tried them.
  
  Do you really think refusing to leave when told to do so is a rare occurance? Are you just assuming that every other school that hasn't come under fire for an officer being physically aggressive with a student ignores the problem? Or that this happens all the time but no one says anything?
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  Don Wposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  By the accounts of the students, the girl was not saying anything to anyone and was seated the whole time. In what way does quietly sitting down constitute 'disruption' to the class?
  
  And the best way to teach someone that they need to be in class and paying attention, is to remove them from the class? Do you also think swearing at children is the the best way to teach them not to swear, and punching children is the best way to teach them not to fight?
  
  If this teacher was at home and this girl was his daughter, and she refused to go to her room, what do you think he should do? Call the police?
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  Credence2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  We also need to teach the administrators at these schools that these aggressive, poorly thought out approaches have consequences, in the form of law suits.
  
  What if the cop had injured the girl in the midst of horseplay, who is liable?
  
  The parents should have been involved prior to arresting a minor without the parents consent or acknowledgment, since we are talking about infractions that do not rise to the level of violation of law.
  
  If there is no attempt to even contact them, then who can say whether they would respond or not?
  
  This man has had a run in with this sort of thing and I probably doubt that 'Goldilocks' would have been subjected to the same thing in an identical circumstance.
  
  The man is and should have been fired for use of poor judgement and excessive force.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  +1
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ahorsebackposted 8 years ago
How about all student cell phones in their lockers like in the real world ! Any body see a pattern here with classroom distractions ? I mean really , our young and even our not so young have dumbed down so much , its unbelievable . Instant U-tube from the classrooms is moronic !
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  That's the rule around here. However, a cell phone was not the root - defiance of authority was. Such a rule might or might not have saved this specific event, but the root is still defiance of authority and it will happen again in other classes.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  There was a time, early in my teaching career, when it was the teacher who made all of the decisions. Slowly that authority was taken away, and because of this and other factors, discipline disintegrated and learning basically ceased to exist.
  
  Parents starting filing suit, school boards feared large settlements, administrators began to worry about their jobs so everybody backed off when it came to disciplining the kids.
  
  Kids are not stupid. They knew it and exploited it and continue to do so to this day. It reminds me of the old story that goes something like this.
  
  Alligators are man eaters. If you insist on feeding them, they eventually lose their fear of man, and pretty soon humans are dinner.
  
  That's what is happening here. Kids have lost all fear, and with it all respect for authority of any kind. They leave school thinking they can say and do whatever they please, and that is why they are dying in the streets.
  
  Pretty clear, isn't it?
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  You said it much better than I did or could.
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  Credence2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  The responsible party for this decline are the parents who expect the school and administrators to do what only they can do.
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Cell phones and other devices should be banned in all schools due to the many, many problems they cause. It will never happen because parents will insist that having a cell phone might save their child's life in the event of an attack, but in the meantime, what we've seen in this example shows what having one can lead to.
  
  Cell phones, especially Smart phones, are highly addictive. Kids just cannot keep their hands off of them, and neither can many adults!
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  Credence2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  I like the idea of the cell phones, because their cameras shine light on activities and behaviors that might otherwise be concealed or be open to interpretation or debate. Helps to keep everybody honest.
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jansharesposted 8 years ago
This:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKljYgANMt8

First of all, I love cops. I worked with them as a counselor for 22 years providing counseling for personal issues and critical incident debriefing for work-related incidents and traumatic stress. I know what street cops, school resources officers, AND teachers go through on a daily basis as they deal with a "different" type of child who defies and bucks authority, curses them out and fights them with no remorse.

I appreciate the opinions of those who focused primarily on the girl's responsibility in escalating the situation, but what she did is nothing new. It's that deputy sheriff's excessive approach to her defiant stance that should be under more scrutiny than her behavior. I'm saddened and disturbed by the way the situation was handled. The larger issue, which was addressed in the video above, is that the deputy sheriff acted outside of protocol, training, and appropriate conduct as a school resource officer. That is the issue.

Officers are trained to assess situations to determine the appropriate level of force to employ so they can safely control the situation or stop a threat. The level of force used usually equals the threat level the officer encounters. This girl was not a threat. Disruptive? Certainly. A threat? No.
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ahorsebackposted 8 years ago
Bottom line is that cops shouldn't be called to schools for personal behavior problems , the ones that teachers USED to handle themselves . There is no reason that that kid shouldn't have been lifted physically and carried from the classroom , only IF she was a distraction for the others . Allowing cell phones in schools is one problem , we are in a time where a culture can't even interact properly because of them , on the highway , in a restaurant , or in church , Yet every moron kid with a phone is now a reporter ? Its ALL about personal accounting for public setting , the kid , the teacher , the cop , it doesn't matter which , everyone involved needs to "bone up" on that alone !

One thing that always angers me ; Did anyone notice that no one else stepped in ? No one offered to help carry that kid out IN her chair , no one stepped in to stop anything from happening , America today is full of cowards , the teacher , the students , the administrators . All cowards !

That's the one constant that the smart phone tells me .
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  TIMETRAVELER2posted 8 years agoin reply to this
  These days people don't "step in" because they are afraid of being sued, injured or arrested. This is what our society has become, and you see the results. If you looked at the video another poster put on this forum about a teacher being attacked by a student, you see that not one kid tried to help the teacher. They either looked away or simply left the room.
  
  All of this, every single bit of it, goes back to poor parenting and the loss of meaningful values in this country (and maybe the world).
  
  When you have young girls happily producing children out of wedlock, you create parents who are totally unprepared to raise them properly. Usually, the are the offspring of parents (or a parent) who did the same.
  
  The continual loosening of morality and the rules has reinforced these existing problems, and we can thank the lawyers and politicians for that one.
  
  We have become the Wild West, and it is every man for himself. Sure, let's let kids and teachers bring guns to school now. Won't THAT be fun!
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  wrenchBiscuitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  
  The loss of meaningful values? are you referring to "Happy Days", or perhaps "Ozzie and Harriet"? Sorry, but those were only TV programs. So was "Little House on the Prairie". Are you suggesting that racism is a meaningful value? Do you believe that thousands of white Americans who have attended and celebrated lynchings since the antebellum were taught meaningful values? Do you believe a society that only recently made it possible for a woman or a child to successfully challenge a rapist in court has shown a propensity for meaningful values. For God's sake, Oscar Wilde is still celebrated today, and he was a known 19th century pedophile! I would really like someone to tell me when the "Good Old Days" actually were, because according to my studies, there has been no peace on this continent since 1492.
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  Are you trying to insinuate that before Columbus people didn't kill each other? No warfare, no raiding neighboring tribes, etc.?
  
  You probably need to rephrase that to somewhere around 80,000 BC, not 1492.
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Au faitposted 8 years ago
Ahorseback: One girl spoke up, and she is the one who took one of the videos. For her effort in speaking up, she too was arrested and charged with disrupting the class, a crime in S.C. Now she too will have a rap sheet, a police record.
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Clive Donegalposted 8 years ago
The officer did what he had to do. The student already had refused to comply with her teacher's and an administrator's directions to leave. She was violently resisting. If they had given in to her egregious behavior, it would not be news...more like business as usual..but it would have been a life-lesson for everyone else in the class, and throughout the school and community as the reports spread.
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  wrenchBiscuitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  
  Hopefully the lesson they learned is that it's not OK for a grown man to assault a teenage girl. She was only "violently" resisting after she was assaulted herself. I am a grown man, and much more intelligent than this miscreant cop. I am not afraid of teenage girls, and I would not need to assault and abuse them in such a situation. Even when dealing with an animal such tactics are usually not necessary. It is also interesting that the girl was black and the cop is white. We can guess that if the girl had been white the cop would have responded differently. America was founded on brutality. It is no wonder that the progeny of slave owners continue to exhibit similar traits. Hopefully he will be fired. But I wouldn't stop there, I would take his pension too!
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  wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  "We can guess that if the girl had been white the cop would have responded differently."
  
  Yes, we can guess, and we can insinuate it is true. The race card is, after all, a very common tactic used by the racists of the country to try and turn everything into a racist issue. At least it is if the racist has a "thing" about Caucasians; other races are mostly immune.
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  wrenchBiscuitposted 8 years agoin reply to this
  
  It is more than a "guess" since the facts and the figures over the last 500 years help to support my "guess". Your tactic here is old and tired. And we can see by the recent public outrage that such tactics are losing ground. You are now suggesting that the man who hates the evil, has become the evil himself!
  
  When Martin Luther King was marching to glory, who do you think he was marching against ? Answer: racist white Americans! When the freedom riders ,Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney were murdered, who murdered them? Answer: racist white Americans! Only one of these young men was black. I am as German as I am anything else. But because I have also revealed my Indigenous heritage, the confused, and deficient racist mind has labeled me as non-white, a half breed, an Indian, or any number of labels; many that are derogatory and racist in nature.
  
  This helps to illustrate the depth of racism here in America. Racial identity has nothing to do with a man's perception of evil. John Brown gave up his life trying to put an end to slavery. Henry David Thoreau defended John Brown in his famous essay, and called for the government to spare John Brown's life. Both of these men were white. Who were they standing against? Answer: racist white Americans! Are you suggesting that these men hated their own race? Do you really believe that white Americans who continue to fight against racial discrimination hate their own race? Your twisted rhetoric will appeal to the elite of the Archie Bunker crowd, but educated people of all races understand your tactics, and will not be moved. The man in the photo was also arrested for "disrupting class".
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wrenchBiscuitposted 8 years ago
Anyone who has educated themselves outside of the revisionist history being taught in the public schools, and who has no proclivity toward racial bias, will understand my meaning.
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Kathryn L Hillposted 8 years ago
Adults produced what the girl is going through. If they have a policy of permissiveness, it was not the girl's fault. if they have a policy of tyrannizing and criticizing, which I have seen in classrooms and AP offices as a substitute teacher, it not the girl's fault. Children learn what they live.

Adults need to act in a responsible and professional way.

No adult in any position whatsoever should have thrown her on her back in a desk and then across the room. He told her to put her hands behind her back in such an excited, tyrannical way. It was horrible to see on the video.

Nothing but horrible.
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realtalk247posted 8 years ago
This was a child. No justification for what this officer did. If you don't see people as human it's amazing how inhumane you can act.
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