Teachers have a job to do..and that job is hard enough…especially in inner-city and rural area schools. Good kids go to school to learn. Most kids deal with enough crap from a variety of social-peer pressure as it is. To say nothing of struggles a student may be experiencing at home and/or academically. But they show up to class and do their best.

Neither teachers nor good kids should have to put up with unruly, disruptive (perhaps even violent) students.

Btw- I don't have kids so I'm a bit outta the loop on how such matters are generally handled in schools these days.

Question for any parent reading this: Are the parents/guardians of a "problematic" kid NOT immediately notified when their kid acts out in ways that require a high level of attention and resolution? Have parents and schools boards now put the matter of disciplining kids in the hands of school police?

There is just a lot here, in terms of the entire process and protocol, that I do NOT understand!?!

Having said all that……..

I watched those videos. And i cannot for the life of me accept the actions of how that officer dealt with that child…and she IS a child. A problematic child – a teenager – but a child nonetheless. Moreover, she was NOT armed. She was NOT a threat to herself or anyone else.

She was disruptive and disrespectful. And for that she was tossed about and body-slammed to the floor by a full-grown, male police officer who weighs at least 250 lbs, standing about 6 feet tall, who appears to use all the strength God gave him as he subdued and arrested that child.

I can't say if racial bias on the part of the officer (who is White) played any part in how he CHOSE to handle the situation by brutalizing that young Black girl(?) Would he have treated a disruptive young white female student in the same manner? I doubt it…but who knows?

I can say that, IMO, at the very least, he should have been fired. And he should NEVER be allowed to police school-age kids again…..and certainly NOT kids of color.

Btw- I would feel the same way if the officer had been Black.

A South Carolina sheriff's deputy seen hurling a student to the ground and then dragging her across the floor in a widely viewed video has been fired, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said Wednesday. Deputy Ben Fields had been on administrative leave since the Monday incident.

"Deputy Ben Fields did wrong Monday," Lott said, adding that Fields had been terminated from the department roughly "20 minutes" before the noon press announcement. […]