A South Carolina sheriff said Wednesday that he had fired a white deputy who was caught on video grabbing an African-American student, flipping her backward as she sat at her desk, then dragging and throwing her across the floor as he tried to remove her from the classroom.
The Richland County deputy, Ben Fields, was dismissed after an internal investigation concluded that he had violated department standards, said the sheriff, Leon Lott. Deputy Fields, who had been assigned to Spring Valley High School, is also a subject of a federal civil rights inquiry that could lead to criminal charges.
“Deputy Fields did not follow proper training, did not follow proper procedure, when he threw the student across the room,” Sheriff Lott said at a news conference in Columbia.
The video of the episode, which spread across social media in the hours after it happened on Monday, drew renewed attention to concerns about the treatment of African-Americans by law enforcement officers. School leaders condemned what happened, and the local school board chairman described it as “an outrageous exception to the culture, conduct and stands in which we so strongly believe in.
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