It’s time to stop brushing the issue under the table; we live in the age of police brutality. Last week, a black high school student caused a disturbance in the classroom as she did not want to hand over her cell phone when the teacher caught her with it out in the middle of class.
When the teacher asked for the student to hand over the phone, the student refused, prompting the teacher to call a police officer assigned to the South Carolina school. When the officer showed up, teenagers did what they do best, pull out their phone and record the incident, in case something went awry.
Things certainly went south when according to nytimes.com, “two videos went viral Monday afternoon that show a white school police officer in a Columbia classroom grabbing an African-American student by the neck, flipping her backward as she sat at her desk, then dragging and throwing her across the floor.”
As a journalist, I encourage you to look up both videos shot by students in the class, and decide for yourself if you think the officer used excessive force. In my opinion, the videos depict the definition of police brutality.
The name of the officer is deputy Ben Fields, who has since been fired from his job. And to that I say, well great, but that does not fix the problem, it does not take back the fact that it happened.
Look, I get it, officers deal with unruly people every day of their lives. I’m not saying they should not have used any force on this high school girl, but flipping a girl from her chair and basically throwing her to the floor and pouncing on her seemed a bit excessive.
On the other hand, as a warning, there is no way you should ever refuse a cop. If we are to hold the police accountable for being brutal, then it is our duty as Americans to abide by the law. The student, who will remain unnamed, refused to give up her phone, stating, “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
If you feel as if you have done nothing wrong, then hand over the phone and go with the policeman. The student appeared to fight back a little bit by punching the cop in the arm, but Deputy Fields, if you mean to tell me you were in fear of getting maimed by a high school girl, then maybe being a policeman is not the right line of work for you.
To solve the problem, the US should only be allowed to employ people who are not afraid of a high schooler, and express a little more intelligence than Deputy Fields did in this incident. Make it even harder for a person to become a cop, and pay them a healthier salary. Not just any Joe-Shmo should be allowed to police the citizens of the greatest country on earth.
I am not going to lie, I am happy Fields got fired, even if some of the students from the very same school want him back and working. If you have a temper, and some high school girl refusing to give up her phone angers you to the point where you feel the need to flip her out of her seat, you probably should not be a cop in America.
As far as race goes when it comes to this altercation, it does not make a difference to me. There is no need to blow something like this out of proportion when it comes to the white authoritative figure dismantling a young black girl.
What this altercation highlighted is we have a problem in America when it comes to the proper handling of issues between citizens and police. Force is necessary in a lot of cases, but in this case, the extent of which force was used was excessive. This kind of physical altercation between a cop and a student in a high school setting is unnecessary and will always be unnecessary.