COLUMBIA, S.C. — A girl who refused to surrender her phone after texting in math class was flipped backward and tossed across the classroom floor by a sheriff’s deputy, prompting a federal civil rights probe Tuesday.
The sheriff said the girl “may have had a rug burn” but was not injured. He said the teacher and vice principal felt the officer acted appropriately. Still, videos of the confrontation between a white officer and black girl stirred such outrage that the sheriff called the FBI and Justice Department for help.
Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott suspended Senior Deputy Ben Fields without pay and said what he did at Spring Valley High School in Columbia made him want to “throw up.”
“Literally, it just makes you sick to your stomach when you see that initial video. But again, that’s a snapshot,” he said.
Videos taken by students and posted online show Fields warning the girl to leave her seat or be forcibly removed Monday. The officer then wraps a forearm around her neck, flips her and the desk backward onto the floor, tosses her toward the front of the classroom and handcuffs her.
Lott pointed out that the girl can also be seen trying to strike the officer as she was being taken down, but he said he’s focused on the deputy’s actions as he decides within 24 hours whether Fields should remain on the force.
“I think sometimes our officers are put in uncomfortable positions when a teacher can’t control a student,” the sheriff said, promising to be fair.
The deputy also arrested a second student who verbally objected to his actions. Both girls were charged with disturbing school and were released to their parents. Their names were not released officially.
The second student, Niya Kenny, told WLTX-TV that she felt she had to say something. Doris Kenny said she’s proud her daughter was “brave enough to speak out against what was going on.”
Lt. Curtis Wilson said to “keep in mind this is not a race issue.”
“Race is indeed a factor,” countered South Carolina’s NAACP president, Lonnie Randolph Jr., who praised the Justice Department for agreeing to investigate. “To be thrown out of her seat as she was thrown and dumped on the floor … I don’t ever recall a female student who is not of color (being treated this way). It doesn’t affect white students,” Randolph said.
The sheriff said race won’t factor into his evaluation: “It really doesn’t matter to me whether that child had been purple,” Lott said.
Tony Robinson Jr., who recorded the final moments, said it all began when the teacher asked the girl to hand over her phone during class. She refused, so he called an administrator, who summoned the officer.
“The administrator tried to get her to move and pleaded with her to get out of her seat,” Robinson said. “She said she really hadn’t done anything wrong. She said she took her phone out, but it was only for a quick second, you know, please, she was begging, apologetic.”
“Next, the administrator called Deputy Fields in. … He asked, ‘Will you move?’ And she said, ‘No, I haven’t done anything wrong,’ ” Robinson said.
“When I saw what was going to happen, my immediate first thing to think was, let me get this on camera.”
Districts across the county put officers in schools after teenagers massacred fellow students at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999. Schools now routinely summon police to discipline students, experts say.
“Kids are not criminals, by the way. When they won’t get up, when they won’t put up the phone, they’re silly, disobedient kids — not criminals,” said John Whitehead, founder of the Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties and human rights organization.
