Girl’s arrest prompts civil rights probe

Deputy in viral video has been suspended without pay.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A girl who refused to surrender her phone after texting in math class was flipped backward and tossed across the classroom floor by a sheriff ’s deputy, prompting a federal civil rights probe on Tuesday.

The sheriff said the girl “may have had a rug burn” but was not injured, and said the teacher and vice principal felt the officer acted appropriately. Still, videos of the confrontation between the white officer and black teenager stirred such outrage that he called the FBI and Justice Department for help.

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott suspended Senior Deputy Ben Fields without pay, and said what he did at Spring Valley High School in Columbia made him want to “throw up.”

“Literally, it just makes you sick to your stomach when you see that initial video. But again, that’s a snapshot,” he said.

Videos taken by students and posted online show Fields on Monday warning the girl to leave her seat or be forcibly removed. The officer then wraps his forearm around her neck, flips her and the desk backward onto the floor, tosses her toward the front of the classroom and handcuffs her.

Lott pointed out at a news conference that the girl can also be seen trying to strike the officer as she is being taken down, but said he’s focused on the deputy’s actions as he decides whether Fields should remain on the force.

Email, phone and text messages for Fields were not returned.

Fields also arrested a second teenager who objected to his actions. Both girls were charged with disturbing schools and released to their parents.

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. In another case, a federal jury sided with Fields after a black couple accused him of excessive force and battery during a noise complaint arrest in 2005. A third lawsuit, dismissed in 2009, involved a woman who accused him of battery and violating her rights during a 2006 arrest.