Arrest of teen who texted in class prompts civil rights case

This three image combo made from video taken by a Spring Valley High School student on Monday, Oct, 26, 2015, shows Senior Deputy Ben Fields trying to forcibly remove a student from her chair after she refused to leave her high school math class, in Columbia South Carolina. The Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation Tuesday after Fields flipped the student backward in her desk and tossed her across the floor. AP

COLUMBIA, South Carolina — 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 on Tuesday.

The sheriff said the girl “may have had a rug burn” but was not injured, and said the teacher and vice-principal felt the officer acted appropriately. Still, videos of the confrontation between a white officer and black teenager stirred such outrage that he called the FBI and Justice Department for help.

Sheriff Leon Lott suspended Senior Deputy Ben Fields without pay, and said what he did at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina “made him want to throw up.”

Videos taken by students and posted online show Fields warning the girl to leave her seat or be forcibly removed on 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 at a news conference that the girl can also be seen trying to strike the officer as she was being taken down, but 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 teenager who verbally objected to his actions. Both girls were charged with disturbing schools and released to their parents. Their names were not officially released.

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.”

Appearing on MSNBC Tuesday night, Niya Kenny said an administrator told her to sit down, be quiet and to put her cellphone away. She refused.

“‘This is not right. This is not right,'” Kenny recalled saying in the classroom. “‘I can’t believe y’all are doing this to her.'”

Kenny said Fields arrested her and handcuffed her inside the classroom.

Lt. Curtis Wilson told The Associated Press in an email 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 whether the girls’ civil rights were violated.

“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.

Districts across the country 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.

At a school board meeting Tuesday night, parents spoke out about the arrest.

“This is not a race issue,” said Rebekah Woodford, a white mother of two Spring Valley graduates and one current student. “This is, I want to be defiant and not do what I’m told. … The child is the one who can choose what to do.”

School Superintendent Debbie Hamm said “the district will not tolerate any actions that jeopardize the safety of our students.” School Board Chairman Jim Manning called the deputy’s actions “shamefully shocking.”

Fields, who also coaches football at the high school, has prevailed against accusations of excessive force and racial bias before.

Trial is set for January in the case of an expelled student who claims Fields targeted blacks and falsely accused him of being a gang member in 2013. In another case, a federal jury sided with Fields after a black couple accused him of excessive force and battery during a noise complaint arrest in 2005. A third lawsuit, dismissed in 2009, involved a woman who accused him of battery and violating her rights during a 2006 arrest.

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