By Sheryl Estrada
Photo via Twitter.
Black parents and civil rights activists presented a petition with reportedly150,000 signaturesto South Carolina Fifth Circuit Solicitor Dan Johnson on Thursday calling for him to drop the misdemeanor charges against a high school student who was violently arrested by a police officer.
Former Richland County Deputy Ben Fields, who was also a school resource officer, forcibly removed a 16-year-old Black female student from her desk at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, S.C., on Oct. 26 because she refused to put away her cell phone and leave the classroom.
Fields flipped the desk over while she was still seated, grabbed her by her clothes, dragged her across the classroom floor and handcuffed her.He can be heard saying, “Get your hands behind your back. Give me your hands. Give me your hands.”
The 16-year-old girl has been identified by her first name, Shakara. Niya Kenny, an 18-year-old classmate, caught the incident on video, which went viral on social media and sparked outrage that ultimately led to to Fields’ dismissal. Now the student faces charges.However, while Fieldshas been fired, he has not been charged with any crime.
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Both students were arrested and eventually released. They were charged with a misdemeanor of “disturbing school,” which is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or 90 days in jail.
“I couldn’t believe that was happening,” Kenny said in an interview in October. “I’ve never seen nothing like that in my life. A man to use that much force on a little girl, a big man I was praying out loud for the girl. I just couldn’t believe this was happening. I was just crying and [Fields] said, since you have so much to say you are coming too. I just put my hands behind my back.”
“My child, and I am not mad at her, was brave enough to speak out against what was going on and didn’t back down,” said her mother Doris Kenny. “And it resulted in her being arrested.”
The group of about two dozen peoplewho presented the petition to Johnson included members of Color of Change, the Alliance for Educational Justice and the Richland Two Black Parents Association, an advocacy organization for Black parents, teachers and students of Richland School District Two. A hashtag,#AssaultAtSpringValleyHigh,was created on Twitter.
“There can be no justification for officer Fields’ brutal assault on a Black student in her classroom,”Executive Director of ColorOfChange.orgRashad Robinson said in a statement.”Officer Fields is unfit to be a police officer or to work with students in any capacity. We’re also demanding that charges be dropped against students already victimized by officer Fields’ actions.”
In October, Richland Two Black Parents Association called for a federal investigation into the practices of what it called the district’s “highly discriminatory practices” toward Blacks. As an FBI investigationand a Department of Justiceinvestigation is taking place, Johnson said he couldn’t make a decision about dropping charges.
“Until we receive the FBI’s findings at the conclusion of their investigation, the incident involving Ben Fields is not a pending case within the Richland County Solicitor’s Office,” he said in a statement.
Efia Nwangaza of the Greenville-based Malcolm X Center for Self Determination, who helped organize the delivery of the petition, said Johnson’s statement isn’t enough.
“We’re not impressed by any of that,” she told ColaDaily.com. “We think this is an opportunity for Mr. Johnson to address the needs of the people who elected him, to conduct his own independent investigation, to bring charges against Ben Fields.”
