A white South Carolina police officer named Ben Fields broke headlines last year after he was caught on camera throwing a Black female student across a classroom.
The former officer attacked the student after she would not surrender her phone to her teacher during class. As described by NY Daily News, Fields went on to “[wrap] his forearm around her neck, then flipped her and her desk backwards before dragging her along the classroom floor while keeping her in a tight headlock. Fields then cuffed the student as her classmates shrieked and cried in shock.”
With the number of racially motivated police crimes, many would think the system would seek justice for the student, but that’s not the case.
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According to the NY Daily News, Solicitor Dan Johnson filed a 12-page court report Sept. 2, stating, “no probable cause to charge the disgraced school resource officer.” His report even included a witness statement that said, “the incident looked worse in the video than it did in the classroom.”
There were also statements from a remorseless Fields in the report: “I realized that I was going to have to physically remove the student from her seat to effectuate her arrest… ‘adding that the desk only flipped over because the student locked her legs inside it.'”
While Fields won’t be facing any repercussions for his actions, the student he slung across the classroom and the student who videotaped the incident have continued to undergo school punishment as a result of their behavior. Johnson says the students were dismissed of their “charges” as of yesterday.