Police officer at Spring Valley High School suspended after classroom arrest- by Bob Cummins

     Synopsis:  On Monday at Spring Valley High School in Richland, SC, Deputy Ben Fields was suspended without pay for violently arresting a student in class.  A video by another student in the classroom shows Fields putting his arms near her neck, yanking her, and slamming her to the ground.  He then proceeds to drag her across the floor.  The student in question had been disrupting the class and was told to leave many times.  According to Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, "it started with her and it ended with my officer."  He's been receiving countless pieces of criticism because of his escalation of the situation instead of trying to calm it.  Analyst Harry Houck argues that the officer was within his rights, using force to get the job done, but he brings up the point that it's not the cop's job to control disruptive students.  It's their job to defend the school from criminals.  There are staff members whose specialty is to deal with disruptive students.  Policemen shouldn't be put into the equation in the first place.  The story is also getting much coverage because Fields is white and the student he arrested is black.  With all of the recent occurrences of racially charged police brutality, this story is prevalent.

     Analysis:  Even though the cop is technically within his rights, this brutality was completely unnecessary to the situation at hand, and he didn't need to be there in the first place.  His way of handling the situation was contrary to what he should have done, calm the situation.  Richland schools are talking about teaching their staff about how to deal with these kinds of situations without being violent.  The question many are asking is if this is a race issue or not.  With these past occurrences of racial brutality, there's a chance it could be.  Things have come a long way in the United States as far as prejudice goes since the beginning of the nation and the civil war, even since Martin Luther King Jr, but we still aren't completely harmonious, as far as blacks and whites are concerned.  There will always be prejudices between people of different races, classes, lifestyles, and backgrounds, but it's always a good goal to try to eliminate them.

Source:  http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/27/us/south-carolina-school-arrest-video/index.html