By now, many have seen the highly disturbing and triggering video of Ben Fields, a school resource officer, slamming and dragging a Black female student of Spring Valley High School (South Carolina) out from her desk. News affiliate WISTV reports that the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office has opened a civil rights investigation into the incident which happened on Monday.
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“The public wants answers. I want answers too and we’re going to get them very quickly, and we’re going to make sure the public knows what we’re going to do and why we’re going to do it. There’s nothing that we’re going to hide at the Sheriff’s Department,” Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said.
Lott says the FBI will lead the investigation into this incident in an effort to curb questions of a “conflict of interest.”
From WISTV:
Fields, according to Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, was acting in response to the student, who was refusing to leave class.
“The student was told she was under arrest for disturbing school and given instructions which she again refused,” Lott said. “The video then shows the student resisting and being arrested by the SRO.”
The first two videos show Fields approaching the girl sitting at a desk in a classroom. Fields grabs the girl’s arm while putting his own arm around the student’s neck.
However, a third video from Instagram shows Fields try and pick the female student out of her desk, but the student then hits the officer while he brings the desk to the ground.
FBI To Investigate Violent Assault Of Spring Valley High Student Caught On Video was originally published on blackdoctor.org
