When thousands see a girl getting thrown out of her chair by a police officer emotions get stirred.
In the last few years there have been many reoccurring problems of police inappropriately treating students. The most recent assault happened at Spring Valley high school in South Carolina, where Deputy Ben Fields was fired for unprofessionally arresting a unnamed student in the middle of class.
This situation in particular has caused an uproar between people on social media and students as well.
Some believe that the unnamed girl received what she deserved for disobeying a deputy, the girl now has bruised ribs, a broken arm, and face injuries.
On Twitter, Elizabeth Tarant said, “The cop didn’t do anything wrong or anything for attention. There are [students] always crying wolf. She deserved it.”
Those on Social Media, however, are mostly assuming that the student acted out against Fields, but the real problem has yet to be revealed. Others view the situation as disturbing, since just last year Fields was presented with a “Culture of Excellence” award from an elementary school.
Students who were in the classroom witnessing the event claimed “that most of them were too scared to react,” with the exception of one classmate, a friend of the victim, Niya Kenny, who was also arrested for trying to stick up for her friend during the incident.
She claimed that she was screaming swear words at the police and then he turned to her and said, “Since you have so much to say you are coming too.” She then stopped speaking and listened to him.
“I know this girl don’t got nobody and I couldn’t believe this was happening. I had never seen a grown man use so much force on a young girl,” said Kenny.
Many feel that the deputy’s reforms were far too violent, and the situation could have been handled differently.
“Obviously, I wouldn’t try to get involved since the conflict is between the officer and the student, but I’d be very shocked and angered by the methods that the officer felt like he had to use in order to arrest the student. I believe that an officer should never use such aggressive tactics to subdue a student. Instead, they should focus more on control rather than achieving their goal of arresting them no matter the outcome for both subjects of the situation,” said sophomore Josh Camerino.
