Cop fired over violent classroom incident
S.C. sheriff says girl shouldn’t have been thrown by officer
COLUMBIA, S.C.— A deputy was fired Wednesday after video showed him flipping a teen backward out of her desk and tossing her across a classroom. The sheriff said the officer did not follow proper procedures and training.
Richland County Senior Deputy Ben Fields was told of his firing late Wednesday morning, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said. Fields had been a school resource officer at Spring Valley High School.
The student was being disruptive and refused to leave the classroom despite being told by a teacher and administrator to do so, Lott said, and that’s when Fields was brought in Monday to remove her from the class. She again refused, and Fields told her she was under arrest, Lott said.
She continued to refuse and at that point the video shows the deputy flipping the teen backward, then throwing her across the room. At that point, Lott said, Fields did not use proper procedure.
“I can tell you what he should not have done: He should not have thrown that student,” Lott said.
The agency’s training unit looked at video of the incident and determined Fields did not follow proper training and procedure, the sheriff said.
Calls for Fields to be fired began mounting almost immediately after the video surfaced, and the FBI began a civil rights investigation at Lott’s request.
“She now has a cast on her arm. She has neck and back injuries. She has a Band-Aid on her forehead where she suffered rug burn on her forehead,” Columbia attorney Todd Rutherford, who is representing the teen, told ABC’s Good Morning America.
Fields has prevailed against accusations of excessive force and racial bias before. Trial is set for January in the case of an expelled student who claims Fields targeted blacks and falsely accused him of being a gang member in 2013.