The Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched an investigation into the viral videos showing a South Carolina high school resource officer assaulting a black teenage girl.
The videos show Officer Ben Fields, 34, putting a a 16-year-old female student in a chokehold and flipping her chair. He then dragged her across the floor caveman style before throwing her against a wall. The unidentified girl was not injured.
The FBI and the Justice Dept. launched a civil rights investigation into the assault.
The incident started when a teacher called Fields to the classroom after the girl refused the teacher’s request to stop texting in class.
The assault was captured by at least 3 cell phone videos. A video from a different angle shows the teenager punching Fields in his face before he flips her chair.
The student “bears some responsibility. It started with her,” Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott told the media.
Fields was suspended without pay and barred from the Spring Valley High School campus in Columbia, SC.
There have been numerous complaints about Fields’ aggressive behavior with black students at the high school.
But Fields isn’t the only officer who used excessive force to control disorderly black students at the school.
A video posted to YouTube.com shows a black officer involved in a fist fight with a male student at the same high school.
The video shows the officer swinging wildly at the boy’s head until other students intervened to separate the combatants.
The hashtag #AssaultAtSpringValleyHigh trended on Twitter.com Monday and prompted outrage from celebrities such as Octavia Spencer, Cher, Ashanti, Talib Kweli and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJGCRliclXQ
2nd Cop Fighting With Student
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezbz4QsMBI4
