Current Events –
Deputy Suspended Over Beating Student

A South Carolina sheriff’s deputy will learn his fate today, after violent video footage of him flipping and beating an African-American female high school student to the floor has gone viral.

Current Events
Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott suspended Senior Deputy Ben Fields without pay and will announce further penalties against him later today.  Sheriff Lott believes what Fields did Monday 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,” Lott said.

According to students in the classroom, the unnamed African-American female student had pulled out her cell phone during class.  This is an offense called “disturbing schools,” so police were called.

“The administrator tried to get her to move and pleaded with her to get out of her seat,” said student Tony Robinson Jr. “She said she really hadn’t done anything wrong. She said she took her phone out, but it was only for a quick second, you know, please, she was begging, apologetic.”

“Next, the administrator called Deputy Fields in … he asked, ‘will you move,’ and she said ‘no, I haven’t done anything wrong,’ Robinson said.

“When I saw what was going to happen, my immediate first thing to think was, let me get this on camera. This was going to be something … that everyone else needs to see, something that we can’t just let this pass by.” That’s when Robinson and several other students started filming the actions of Deputy Fields.

The videos show the officer standing over the student, while she was seated at her desk. He put his arm near her neck, then yanked her backward. The desk, which is attached to her chair, tipped over and the student crashed backward onto the floor. However, Fields didn’t let go and lifted her slightly off the ground. She flew out of her desk and slid several feet across the floor, before being physically dragged out of the classroom.

The deputy also arrested a second student who verbally objected to his actions. Both girls were charged with disturbing schools and released to their parents.

The second student, Niya Kenny, told reporters that she felt she had to say something. Doris Kenny said she’s proud her daughter was “brave enough to speak out against what was going on.”

Sheriff’s department spokesman Lt. Curtis Wilson said there were no reports of any injuries, while Sheriff Lott said he did not believe the girl was seriously hurt.

“To my knowledge, she wasn’t injured whatsoever,” Lott said. “She may have a rug burn or something like that, but she was not injured.”

But Todd Rutherford, the student’s attorney, said his client suffered a bruise on her head and now has to wear a cast on her arm. They are expected to file a civil lawsuit within days. The FBI and area U.S. Attorney’s Office have also opened a civil rights investigation to determine whether federal laws were violated during the student’s arrest.

Current Events
Interestingly, this is not the first time Fields has been charged with excessive violence.

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.

Realizing that this story has now gone national, Lt. Curtis Wilson tried to dampen response by saying in an email statement to “keep in mind this is not a race issue.”

“Race is indeed a factor,” countered South Carolina’s NAACP president, Lonnie Randolph Jr., who praised the Justice Department for agreeing to investigate.

“To be thrown out of her seat as she was thrown, and dumped on the floor … I don’t ever recall a female student who is not of color (being treated this way). It doesn’t affect white students,” Randolph said.

Sheriff Lott responded, saying race won’t factor into his evaluation: “It really doesn’t matter to me whether that child had been purple,” Lott said.

Since the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, districts across the county have put police officers in schools for safety reasons.  However, the schools are now routinely summoning police to discipline students — for even minor offenses — which is wrong.

“Kids are not criminals, by the way. When they won’t get up, when they won’t put up the phone, they’re silly, disobedient kids — not criminals,” said John Whitehead, founder of the Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties and human rights organization.

Police should guard doors to “stop the crazies from getting in these schools,” Whitehead said, but “when you have police in the schools, you’re going to run into this — having police do what teachers and parents should do.”

OK WASSUP! covers current events, including
the South Carolina sheriff’s deputy who was suspended
for violence against an African-American high school student.