Color of Change Petition Re: Demanding SC Officer Be Held Accountable For Excessive Use of Force (1259 hits)
Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott has fired Officer Ben Fields.1 In the past 24 hours, nearly 90,000 ColorOfChange members took action demanding local officials hold Officer Fields fully accountable, and today your powerful voices were heard — in part.
Sheriff Lotts chose only to consider policy violations instead of laying the groundwork for Fields to be criminally prosecuted. As of right now, the only people facing charges are the young students Fields brutalized. It's inexcusable. Fields — who has a long history of violence targeting Black students and Richland residents — should never be a police officer again, but he must be charged with a crime in order to lose his license.2 Join us in demanding that Officer Fields is brought to justice and the Black students he victimized are protected, not criminalized.
Urge Richland County Solicitor Dan Johnson to drop the charges against all students and charge Officer Fields with assault. Once you're done, please ask your friends and family to do the same.
During today's press conference, Sheriff Lotts' acknowledged Officer Field's wrongdoing but peddled much of the same victim blaming rhetoric we see every time police assault Black people. "She is responsible for initiating this action," said Lotts about the peaceful Black teen who Officer Fields assaulted.3 Lotts even went so far as to say the girl and the students who filmed her assault "broke the law," but refused to comment on whether or not Fields should face criminal charges. A student having their cell phone in class is not a crime, and neither is filming the police. The only crime committed that day was by Officer Fields who assaulted a child.
The bottom line: Fields should have never been called in the first place. ColorOfChange members know all too well that the police violence caught on camera at Spring Valley High is part of a much larger crisis of criminalization targeting Black students. In the past few years, the number of police in schools has skyrocketed and the result has been devastating. Known as the "school to prison pipeline," kids are now much more likely to be suspended, expelled and arrested for the type of issues that years ago would have landed a student in the principal's office.4 Black girls — who face dehumanizing racial and gender stereotypes — are 6 times more likely than white girls to be suspended, most commonly for subjective issues such as "having a bad attitude."5 Police should play no role in the everyday education and disciplining of students.
Shamefully, school administrators issued statements in support of Officer Fields after videos of his violent attack went viral.6 Sheriff Lotts said some school officials didn't think Officer Fields used excessive force and "had no problems with the physical part." The educators who involved a police officer in this minor disciplinary issue and the policy makers who have failed to limit the role of police in schools must also be held accountable. As we work to undo the policies and practices that allowed Officer Fields to brutalize teens at Spring Valley High for years, we must demand that the students he terrorized aren't punished.
Prosecuting Officer Fields is the first step in undoing the policies and practices that allowed him to terrorize Black and brown students in Richland. Click here to take action.
Thank you,
— Arisha, Rashad, Scott, Lyla and the rest of the ColorOfChange team.
You all need to stop. What you didn't see on that video was that student refusing to get off the phone, disobeying her teacher's request, disobeying the principal's request, disobeying the police officer's request. That's three pieces of authority that the student disrespected. That police officer didn't just walk over and throw her out her chair. He asked her several times to get up and she refused before he resulted to brute force. She was still holding on to the chair even when he tried to tare her from it and the chair lost balance, fell over and that's when the police removed her and tossed her hard headed behind. It ain't the officer's fault that our children (ALL NATIONALITIES) are OFF THE CHAIN when it comes to distributing disciplinary. It's society's fault for taking prayer out the school. It's the parents because they side with the unruly children and want to sue the school system when they discipline their children. When I was coming up, we used to get paddled on the behind with a wooden paddle, spanked in the hand with a ruler, or stood in a corner with a dunce hat on our head for ten minutes, but we had respect for adults through it all. White kids started that mess, suing the school system and look now their children are shooting up whole schools. Black parents followed suit and now their children dropping out the kindergarten long less fourth grade.
Friday, October 30th 2015 at 12:21PM
Alona Israel
Police shouldn't have to play a role in the school system, but now school employees are being brutalized trying to control these unruly children. It's the sign of the times. END TIMES!!
Friday, October 30th 2015 at 12:29PM
Alona Israel
The bottom line: Fields should have never been called in the first place. The teachers should have list of students home phone numbers(especially unruly students) to called parents or guardian right from the classroom.The presence of police at the school should be there to control violence.
Friday, October 30th 2015 at 7:02PM
Helen Lofton
@ Alona,
..."You all need to stop. What you didn't see on that video was that student refusing to get off the phone, disobeying her teacher's request, disobeying the principal's request, disobeying the police officer's request."...
No one condones what the student did, but its hardly a reason for calling the cops in? The girl apparently had some social and emotional issues. Her only adult care taker (grandma) passed away and she was placed in foster care (or something like that). Why not call the school psychologist or guidance counselor or her foster parents?
..."The bottom line: Fields should have never been called in the first place. The teachers should have list of students home phone numbers(especially unruly students) to called parents or guardian right from the classroom."...
Absolutely agree with you. The way minority kids are dealt with in starkly different from their counterparts. Can you believe that when my son was in 5Kindergarten, he was marched to the office by the teacher. I lit into the teacher and went to the principal about it. I told the teacher that contrary to the stereotype, my son isn't violent or aggressive and that she should NEVER send a 5 year old to the principal's office as they shouldn't be penalized because they don't know right from wrong at that age.
