By Jovanna Brinck
Courier Staff Reporter
People all over the world were outraged last Monday, as a video of a resource officer at a South Carolinian school attacking a student became viral over social media.
The twenty second video, recorded by a witness in the classroom, shows a resource officer talking to a young female student and then yanking her from her desk. After, he throws her on the floor and tries to restrain her.
Twitter users took to their computers proclaiming their disgust. The hashtag, #AssaultAtSpringValleyHigh, was the number 1 trending topic. This video was also trending on Facebook.
Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina is where this incident took place. As the issue became more publicized, the resource officer, Officer Ben Fields, was put on administrative leave. After investigation, it was said that Officer Fields was known to treat the students like this. In fact, he was nicknamed “Officer Slam” by students.
When Officer Fields was fired, hundreds of students from Spring Valley High protested in support of the officer. They walked out of their class, some wearing t-shirts that read, “#BringBackFields.” Some students argued that Officer Fields is “tough, but fair.” The students returned to their classrooms shortly without punishment after being asked by their principal.
Like Spring Valley High, James Logan also has a resource officer. Officer Rob Young is on duty at Logan Tuesday through Friday. He has his own office located in the Main Office, and works with a multitude of issues that occur at Logan, like the lockdown we had a few weeks ago and mental health cases.
Our principal, Mr. Brar, believes that Officer Young is “very collaborative.” He has brought resources and training offering to Logan while he’s been here.
Students at Logan gave their opinion of Officer Young in comparison to Officer Fields.
Isaias Mendez-Martinez, a senior, said, “[Officer Fields] is crazy. I don’t think a normal officer would do something like that.”
Christine Nguyen, Jessica Leung, and Fatima Khojazada, all seniors, began ranting about the issue.
“You shouldn’t have to resort to violence to control a student.”
“If he knew how to do his job properly, he wouldn’t have to treat her the way he did.”
“It happened in South Carolina because there is a lot of injustice there, but that would never happen at a school like Logan.”
It seems that students here feel that we would not have a problem like the assault at Spring Valley High in South Carolina.