A new video has surfaced following the altercation between a South Carolina student and a school police monitor showing the student repeatedly punching the officer in the face as he was trying to remove her from the classroom.
After a video captured on a student cellphone in a South Carolina High School on Monday showed a violent exchange between a student and the officer, outrage broke out on social media criticizing the officer’s use of force.
This new video, described by Sheriff Leon Lott as the “third video,” will play a part in the internal affairs investigation into whether Senior Deputy Ben Fields violated policy in Monday’s incident at Spring Valley High School in Columbia.
After the first video surfaced, Fields was placed on administrative leave.
There are at least three videos that have surfaced of the incident — which shows the girl flailing at the officer as he is already in the middle of flipping her chair over.
Lott said his department’s internal investigation should be completed within the next 24 hours, when he will announce Fields’ future.
The entire incident began when a teacher had complained that the student, who has not been identified, was being unruly during class and refused to leave even after an administrator was called in.
“The student was wrong in what she did — she disrupted class, she was disturbing the others students from getting an education. But does her actions meet the level of what this officer did?” Lott asked. “That’s what we’re going to decide.”
Lott added that she had been texting and using her phone instead of doing her school work during math class.
– With files from the Associated Press