US police officer fired for student assault

A US police officer has been fired after video showing him throwing a female student across a classroom was shared widely on the internet.

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said that Senior Deputy Ben Fields “did not follow proper procedure”.

He was a resource officer at the school in South Carolina.

He “should not have thrown a student - he could have done a lot of things he was trained to do, he was not trained to throw a student”, Sheriff Lott said.

The incident occurred at the Spring Valley High School in Columbia, witnesses said, when the African-American student refused to put away her mobile phone and then refused to leave the classroom.