Oh yes.
(CNN)The video shows a South Carolina school resource officer standing over a student, seated at her desk. He puts his arm near her neck, then yanks her backward. The desk tips over and the student crashes onto the floor.
The uniformed officer doesn’t let go, sharply tugging the student toward the front of the classroom. She flies out of her desk and slides several feet across the floor.
“Give me your hands,” the officer says.
His is the only voice heard. Other students sit calmly and quietly, one of them covering his face with his hand.
Yet many haven’t been so quiet since the footage out of Columbia, South Carolina, surfaced.
Some have defended the officer, many pointing out that the video isn’t complete. It doesn’t show what happened before, including what the student did and how many times authorities — a teacher, a school administrator and finally the officer, Richland County Sheriff’s Deputy Ben Fields — had asked her to get up.
The video has of course gone viral.
Hey whatever.
The new rule is that when teachers can’t handle disruptive kids who refuse to obey, they call the police.
Pretty soon everyone will be calling the police for everything.
Otherwise, what’s the point of life in a police state?
(I know, I know, in their defense I should add that teachers are not allowed to discipline students or touch them in any way, so they have no choice. But isn’t that the whole idea?)
UPDATE: Many thanks to Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit for the link! A warm welcome to all!
Comments
35 responses to ““We saw a pretty routine discipline issue become a criminal issue in just a matter of minutes””
I don’t know. But considering the “justice” that has been “served” by schools in the past, I suspect she’s probably better off in the “criminal justice” system than what passes for it in schools.
[…] THE MESS IN OUR SCHOOLS:“We saw a pretty routine discipline issue become a criminal issue in just a matter of minutes”. […]
RE: Better with Criminal Justice?
Wait until they start taxing. Next comes the shooting, like out on the streets.
That should read ‘taxing’ but auto spell check changed it….
TAZ! Dag nab it….
I suspect that the student wanted to incite a confrontation. Their buddy was ready with the video. Perhaps they wanted to be the next “clockboy”, but now they have a big, juicy lawsuit. Call Ben Crump.
“I suspect that the student wanted to incite a confrontation.”
Which makes how the officer is trained to handle it ok how?
Assuming that was how the officer was trained.
I suspect he handles his own children the same way.
Back in my day teachers could use corporal punishment. I saw it done only once, in 6th grade. That would have been about 1963. Mr. Demonaz had a wood paddle, a bit larger than a ping pong paddle. (And no, I wasn’t the paddle-ee.)
No disciplinary problems at all after that.
I just happen to be in Columbia, SC on business and saw this on the news last night. The Sheriff had a very good presser. A couple of things stood out. One, there is evidently a law in SC where teachers can call the law on “disruptive” students and they get arrested, after that the force continuum becomes a “law enforcement” force continuum instead of a “disruptive student” force continuum. Essentially, this girl was resisting arrest. The Sherriff thinks the law is stupid and that it has and will be abused, but he has to enforce it.
Second, she punched the cop in the face. I think most people know that if you punch a cop in the face while you’re getting arrested, you will get a beating.
You didn’t see that because the original video was, surprise, edited. The news here showed the long video with the clear punch.
Third, even though the girl punched him, that deputy is toast. It was clear that the Sheriff thinks that the deputy over-reacted. I agree, and think this whole incident was staged to get an unpopular school resource officer fired.
Schools need to think ahead about these types of incidents and change their procedures. The first thing that should have been done would have been to clear the entire room of all other students. Take them to the gym or the library. Then you would not have youtube videos being posted about the incident. Also, you would not have to provide grief counseling to all the classmates who had to witness such a horrific display of the consequences of not obeying the commands of a law enforcement officer.
Few years ago there was video of an officer acting like a huge asshat while dealing with a guy who’d stopped in a parking lot. One of the defenses of the officer was “Hey, we think that guy set him up!”
Response from one cop was “The cop didn’t have to react that way. If the guy was trying to embarrass him, he couldn’t have done it without the officer acting like a jerk.”
Yeah, we have to beware of edited videos; fact is that the less the officer acts like an asshat, the less he’ll have to worry about that.
Spring Valley used to be the premier high school in the Columbia area…it has decidedly gone down the tubes lately.
Of course, it is a mere coincidence of course that it is down the street from Columbia Mall which used to be the prime shopping venue but that was closed down a few years ago because it became too dangerous because of a certain community’s gangs were holding turf war riots and drive by shootings in the parking lots along with terrorizing people in the food courts.
But of course, the big problem is law enforcement…..bahahhaahahahahahahaha
In my day, if you acted like that the principal would have had you meet the board of education. It had holes in it so the air wouldn’t slow it down. Kids rarely required more than one meeting.
We won’t go back to that so we have to have cops do the dirty work.
Will above is right, you need to clear the room before you deal with miscreants like that.
As a police officer, I am trained for this.
First I ask you for your compliance.
When you fail to comply to my lawful order, I then have to Tell you to comply.
When you fail to comply after I tell you to comply to my lawful order, I have to force you to comply.
That is the simple truth. I understand there is an untouchable class of people today, but that won’t last forever. Eventually they will have to become civilized like the rest of America.
We dop them a diservice by not expecting the same level of manners as the rest of the country from them.
I think she got what she deserved. He followed the rules. She resisted a lawful arrest, both passively, and then actively. He could have punched her out of her chair and been within the rules.
At some point we need to recognize that some people have no fear, so they need some fear instilled in them. If they won’t correct themselves, they have to be corrected. And if they can be corrected by reminding them that there are lines you never cross without painful repercussions, that’s better than wrapping the obnoxious special snowflakes in yet one more layer of cotton batting.
@Skymast
“I understand there is an untouchable class of people today”
There is none such, but the closest* to it we have are police officers. If there was no video evidence of this officer acting the way he acted, he would have kept his job to abuse his authority in anther place and another time, maybe murdering someone someone.
*Possibly Democrat politicians edge out the police for being generally not held accountable for their crimes–Hillary may yet wear an orange jumpsuit.
If she was white she would not have been treated that way. All lives matter ;but black lives are in danger.
All lives matter ;but black lives are in danger.
Blacks are murdered at about 8 times the rate of whites. However, blacks also commit murder at about 8 times the rate of whites. Blacks commit over 90% of the murders against blacks.
When blacks stop murdering blacks, black lives will not be in danger.
gringo glad to see your for gun control.
Captain,
And what makes you think that gun control will stop criminals of any color from murdering others who have no defense?
Captain, perhaps you need to talk to the Sisters of Mercy
gringo it is hard to shoot people if you don’t have a gun. If guns are outlawed only people who hide their guns deep in the ground will have them and are not much of a threat. with sting operations for those who wish to sell guns to others it will be difficult for very many crazy people to get guns to shoot school children with. we can convict nra and elected official gun nuts with accessary every time someone is killed with a gun. should keep the gun nut supporters in hiding.
captain*arizona
gringo glad to see your for gun control.
From Pew Research: The demographics and politics of gun-owning households:
The new research also suggests a paradox: While blacks are significantly more likely than whites to be gun homicide victims, blacks are only about half as likely as whites to have a firearm in their home (41% vs. 19%). Hispanics are less likely than blacks to be gun homicide victims and half as likely as whites to have a gun at home (20%).
As blacks are less likely than whites to own a gun, but are more likely than whites to both murder and to be a murder victim, I fail to see how increased gun control will reduce the black murder rate.
It isn’t that these results show a “paradox,” it is that these results don’t fit the a lib narrative. Which is why I ended up leaving the libs: more and more I saw that lib narratives didn’t fit the facts.
captain arizona
gringo it is hard to shoot people if you don’t have a gun. If guns are outlawed only people who hide their guns deep in the ground will have them and are not much of a threat. with sting operations for those who wish to sell guns to others it will be difficult for very many crazy people to get guns to shoot school children with. we can convict nra and elected official gun nuts with accessary every time someone is killed with a gun. should keep the gun nut supporters in hiding.
Do I take it from the above that you are in favor of outlawing and confiscation of guns?
Re gun ownership and homicide, refer to my comment at Guns & Homicide, Map Form.
Not exactly evidence for the “more guns mean more murder” narrative,” is it?
I am not fond of guns, courtesy of a fatal gun accident in my childhood which involved a friend and his older brother. Nonetheless, it seems to me that the so-called “gun nuts” that our captain arizona commenter refers to are superseded by the “anti-gun nuts” who have a very strong tendency to ignore the facts in order to advance their narratives.
The 2nd Amendment’s main function is to protect the people against a tyrannical government.
In a just society I would favor a strict gun control policy. Since we don’t live in a just society we must live with the second amendment until we do and try to keep guns out of the hands of nuts with better mental health planning.
Which right wing gun nut was it who said “political power comes from the barrel of a gun”?
man mole hill that is why I said a just society.
No such thing as a just society. Even if there were, some percentage will confuse their internal unhappiness for a fault in society.
Some police are hard working professional law enforcers. OTH, give some goon with a 91 IQ and a 2″ dick a badge and a gun and suddenly he’s king shit.
When guns are outlawed only the police will have guns.
_OTOH_, dang it
Everything else aside, if the police want to arrest your ass for something your ass is going to be arrested, one way or another. Sucks, but there it is, with the insane and out of control festering pile of senseless law we now have.
@captain*arizona – “In a just society I would favor a strict gun control policy. Since we don’t live in a just society we must live with the second amendment until we do and try to keep guns out of the hands of nuts with better mental health planning.”
We’ll never live in a ‘just society’ because the definitions of what constitutes a just society are so very malleable depending on who does the defining.
Likewise, we must not ‘live with the second amendment’ until, well… anything, inclusive of whenever we achieve a ‘just society’ by whatever criteria you define that as. We *have* the 2nd amendment because it acknowledges two inalienable human rights: the right to self defense, and the right to have the ability to defend against tyranny.
It’s not a stopgap amendment: “Shall not be infringed until we have achieved an unachievable utopia as defined by ______ ”
I have problems with the second part of your quoted statement as well: “with better mental health planning.”
As defined by who? What constitutes mental health? Defined by what measures?
Heya, that works fine – up until the right group of totalitarians gets into a position to define legal gun ownership as a mental aberration in need of treatment… treatment which, naturally, precludes the sufferers from legal gun ownership.
No.
There is no except clause in “shall not be infringed.” There is no preemption clause in US law.
And the right to keep and bear arms isn’t dependent on the 2nd amendment, anyway. It exists regardless of whether the amendment continues to exist or not.
The occasional nut case proving that they shouldn’t be trusted with sharp objects, much less firearms, is an inevitable cost of freedom. We have laws against homicide and assault to deal with them after they prove that. There is no means of dealing with them prior to that that does not infringe upon the rights and freedoms of people who haven’t demonstrated ill faith and ill intent.