South Carolina authorities are investigating a video that went viral on social media showing a deputy sheriff choking a female African-American student, slamming her to the ground and then dragging her across a classroom floor while attempting to place her under arrest.
The video footage was apparently shot by students in the classroom and posted on social media Monday, creating a snowball effect on netizens and prompting debate over how police officers at the Spring Valley High School treat African-Americans, according to the New York Times.
In the video, the student was reportedly asked by her teacher to leave the classroom and go to the discipline office, but she ignored the instruction. The school administrator then came inside the room asking her if he needed to get the resource officer. She also ignored. Then a third person came inside the room asking if she was going to go or if he had to make her go, but again she resisted.
"Then he grabbed her and pulled her out of her desk and she fell on the ground with the desk still on her. He then threw her across the room and then got on top of her. Another student tried to stand up for her, which also led to her arrest," Gawker.com said.
It was not clear if the second student was apprehended in the aftermath of the taped incident. School authorities are reportedly looking into the incident to get the truth out.
Interviewed by a South Carolina television station, Sheriff Leon Lott said the officer, a deputy with the sheriff's department, was merely acting in response to a disruptive 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."
Lott did not mention the name of the deputy but some former students had identified the officer as Ben Fields. In his biography posted on the school's website, he is said to coach the school's football team's defensive line and is the team's strength and conditioning coach.
According to ex-Spring Valley students discussing the incident on social media, Fields is a the school resource officer for both Spring Valley High School and Lonnie B. Nelson Elementary.
Others on Twitter have also been discussing an incident in which Fields allegedly had a physical altercation with a pregnant student at the school, a story repeated in the comments of a 2012 blog post alleging an excessive force complaint against Fields, accompanied by a since-deleted video.
The student in the video meanwhile was described by some classmates and schoolmates as a "quiet girl'' who has just been transferred to their class.
Spring Valley High School consists of about 2,000 students, 52 percent of whom are black and 30 percent are white, said the report.
