A South Carolina police officer who violently removed a black, female student from her desk has been fired.
Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said Wednesday that Richland County Senior Deputy Ben Fields, who was serving as a resource officer at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, did not follow proper procedures and training when called to deal with a female student in a classroom, and has thus been “terminated.”
Videos filmed Monday went viral, showing Fields, who is white, flipping a black female high school student out of her desk and dragging her across the classroom. Fields was called in to remove the student from the classroom, who had already been asked to leave by a teacher and an administrator to leave for being disruptive.
Calls for Fields to be fired piled up after the videos went viral, so the police agency’s training unit took a look at the videos and determined Fields did not follow proper training and procedure.
“That’s what caused me to be upset when I first saw that video and it’s why I continue to be upset when I see that video,” Lott said during a news conference Wednesday announcing Fields’ firing. While some reports said the student hit Fields and resisted arrest, Lott said he did not believe the right procedures were used once the officer put his hands on the student.
“What she did doesn’t justify what that deputy did,” Lott said, adding, “I’ll tell you what he should not have done: He should not have thrown the student.”
On Monday, Lott had suspended Fields without pay and barred him from returning to school grounds.
Todd Rutherford, an attorney from Columbia representing the student, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that 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.”
The FBI and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division have begun a civil rights investigation into the incident, per Lott’s request.
