World's News Tonight reported that South Carolina’s authorities recently made another announcement in regards of the disturbing video that surfaced online and its aftermath this past Monday. The footage shows Spring Valley High School resource officer, Ben Fields, who also happens to be one of the school’s football coaches, flipping a female student to the ground while she was still sitting in her chair.
According to Good Morning America, allegedly, the 16-year-old was asked to leave the room numerous times for using her cell phone and disrupting the classroom, and after refusing, the senior deputy stepped in. His actions creating an outrage as fellow students caught the confrontation on video and posting it to multiple social media where it captures the attention of many including the FBI, which prompted them to open an investigation.
Along with the FBI, the Richland County Sheriff Department was responding as well releasing several press conferences with the most recent being on Wednesday.
Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott addresses the confrontation as well as the internal investigation’s findings in the above video provided by Fox 10 Phoenix. Throughout the conference, Lott is found saying the following.
He states that the deputy verbally announced that he was going to place the student under arrest and at that point was allowed to put his hands on her; however, Lott continues “He [Ben Fields] attempted to use force to make the arrest. I do not feel that the proper procedures were used at that point.”
He further states that “the maneuver that he used was not based on the training or acceptable.” He shares that after examining the video, the department’s training unit concluded that Fields did not follow proper procedure guidelines and training violating the department’s policy: “He picked the student up and threw the student across the room. That is not a proper technique and should not be used in law enforcement.”
This violation of policy led to Fields’ termination from the Richland County Sheriff’s Department that Wednesday after working with Spring Valley for seven years. Lott does not condone what Fields did, but also states the student needs to take some responsibility as well for the incident started with her. She disrupted the class hindering the teacher’s ability to teach as well as the students’ the ability to learn. “What she did doesn’t justify what our deputy did. I don’t want anybody to think that. It doesn’t justify his actions,” Lott stresses.
When opened up to questions, Lott responded to one in regards of releasing Fields’ personnel file. The file will not be released at the moment, but Lott did state that Fields had complaints in the past and that none were from the school district or dealt with Spring Valley. Some of those complaints were sustained and he did them, others have not been. He addressed that Fields did go before a jury after being sued, however the verdict was against the alleged accusations and that the jury ruled in Fields’ favor.
Lott also stated that Fields feels sorry for what had taken placed and that what happened was not his intentions. Personally speaking with him, Lott believes that if he could redo it, Fields would definitely change what had previously transpired.
With what has happened, Sheriff Lott will definitely take the incident and ensure that the mistake does not happen again among school deputies, or all deputies for that matter. The department will also work closely with the school districts to create an understanding between the actions of law enforcement and administrative actions and when each should be implemented.
The sheriff department addressed the violations of the department’s polices, which resulted in termination based solely on Fields’ actions. Whether or not, Ben Fields will face criminal charges are unknown at this time. That decision will be made by the FBI United States Attorney’s Office for everything was handed over to the FBI. As for the student, she is still being charged with what she was arrested for: “What Deputy Fields did doesn’t excuse what they did [another student was arrested during the same incident].” He believes that everyone should be held accountable for what they did. Fields was and the students arrested needs to be too.
Sheriff Lott does not want this incident to tear apart the community and the relationship between the department and the citizens of Richland County: “We work for the people and that there’s nothing we should hide from our citizens.”
