Sheriff: Deputy Fired After Video Showed Him Flipping Teen Out Of Desk

In this Monday, Oct, 26, 2015 photo made from video taken by a Spring Valley High School student, Senior Deputy Ben Fields tries to forcibly remove a student who refused to leave her high school math class, in Columb... In this Monday, Oct, 26, 2015 photo made from video taken by a Spring Valley High School student, Senior Deputy Ben Fields tries to forcibly remove a student who refused to leave her high school math class, in Columbia S.C. The Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation Tuesday after Fields flipped the student backward in her desk and tossed her across the floor. (AP Photo) MORE LESS
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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina sheriff says he has fired a school officer after video showed him flipping a teen backward out of her desk and tossing her across a classroom.

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said Wednesday that Senior Deputy Ben Fields has been fired. He had been a school resource officer at Spring Valley High School.

Lott says the maneuver that Fields used on the student was not based on training or acceptable procedure.

Lott has said the girl was uninjured aside from a rug burn. However, the girl’s attorney, Todd Rutherford, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that she “has a cast on her arm, she has neck and back injuries.” He says she also has a bandage on her forehead because of the rug burn.

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  1. Seems like they saying, “Don’t sue us, sue him”. Doesn’t the police dept. think they should have vetted this asshole sooner? Seems they had a few examples of this cop behaving badly when he was allowed to get off without consequences prior to this incident. I’d like to see the Sheriff’s dept. address that.

  2. I think the her and her family will have a case with this one –

  3. Thank God for cell phones. Without them no one would have believed her and Mr. Tough Guy woulkd still be abusing kids. I don’t care what the girl said to him, what he did could never be justified.

    And you know the rest of his buddies are just like him if it took the sheriff this many days to realize that “the maneuver that Fields used on the student was not based on training or acceptable procedure” when everyone else in the world knew instinctively that it was wrong.

  4. Avatar for wtf1 wtf1 says:

    Ya’ think?! I wonder how much of his abuse was never captured on tape (or whatever medium is used these day)?!

  5. The irony of the whole situation is that the two people who got in trouble where both in trouble for cell phones. The first for not putting it away, and the second for begging her fellow students to film it. They both deserve to have their suspensions reveresed and receive an official apology from the police department and the school district.

    And the rest of the kids, keep your phones close, as they are your most powerful weapon against the iron fist of the police state.

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