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.
Fields was caught on camera taking down a female student in the middle of class. The video doesn’t show what prompted Fields to take her down but it has been plastered all over the Internet and is the latest in a long line of controversial situations involving local police.
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.
“From the very beginning that’s what’s caused me to be upset, and (which) continued to upset me is that he picked the student up and threw the student across the room,” Lott said. “Deputy Ben Fields did wrong this past Monday.”
He said that Fields didn’t have any prior complaints in seven years of service but that his actions warranted immediate termination.
“What she did doesn’t justify what our deputy did. It doesn’t justify his actions, but she needs to be held responsible for what she did,” Lott said.
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.
