S.C. deputy is fired for flipping teen girl
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A deputy who flipped a disruptive student out of her desk and tossed her across her math class floor was fired on Wednesday.
The sheriff called his actions “unacceptable” and said videos recorded by her classmates show the girl posed no danger to anyone.
“What he should not have done is throw the student,” Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said. “Police officers make mistakes, too. They’re human and they need to be held accountable, and that’s what we’ve done with Deputy Ben Fields.”
Civil rights groups praised the swift action against Fields, a resource officer and football coach at Spring Valley High School. Outrage spread quickly after videos of the white officer arresting the black teenager on Monday appeared on the Internet.
More than a dozen parents and community members vented their anger at Tuesday night’s school board meeting. Some, black and white alike, said the issue wasn’t racial and that schools and parents need better ways of handling defiant students.
Lott thanked the FBI for investigating whether civil rights were violated and school officials for promising to review how police are used for discipline.
“They need to understand that when they call us, we’re going to take a law enforcement action,” Lott said. “Maybe that ought to have been something handled by the school without ever calling the deputy.”
The sheriff also had stern words for the student who started the confrontation by refusing to hand over her cellphone after her math teacher saw her texting in class — a violation of school policy.
Both she and another student who verbally challenged the officer’s actions during the arrest still face misdemeanor charges of disturbing schools, punishable by up to a $1,000 fine or 90 days in jail, Lott said, although in most cases, judges impose alternative sentences that keep students out of jail.
“The student was not allowing the teacher to teach and not allowing the students to learn. She was very disrespectful, and she started this whole incident,” Lott said. “It doesn’t justify his actions. But again, she needs to be held responsible for what she did.”
The girl in the videos remains unidentified, but she has obtained an attorney — Todd Rutherford, who also serves as House minority leader in South Carolina’s Legislature.
Rutherford contradicted the sheriff ’s claim Tuesday that the girl “may have had a rug burn” but was otherwise uninjured.
“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,” Rutherford told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Lott also praised the students whose videos put such an intense spotlight on his deputy’s actions.
“I can’t fix problems if I don’t know about it,” Lott said. “I would say that every citizen with a camera, if they see something that’s going on that disturbs them, they should film it. Our citizens should police us.”