Viral video shows misguided response from officer

Stephanie Atchley

perspectives

Recently, a video has gone viral of a 16-year-old girl being pulled out of her desk and thrown several feet in the classroom by the school’s resource officer. The reason that the officer was asked to take the girl out of her classroom was because she was being disrespectful, not listening to the teacher, and then refusing to leave the classroom when asked to leave.

The officer comes into the class, telling the girl to come with him, or he will make her come with him. She still refuses to leave and stays seated in her desk. The officer grabs her by the back of her knee and her arm and starts to force her out of the desk.

The different views of the three videos taken by students in the class make it possible for viewers to see the way that she flailed so much could have been the reason her desk falling backwards, slamming into the ground. At that point in time, the officer may have still been following protocol due to the fact that it was not proven that he was willingly trying to make her desk slam into the ground. After that, when the desk is on the ground, is when the officer takes things way too far.  

He drags the student out of her desk and throws her. He was too extreme with trying to force the student out of the classroom and should have never used that much force on the student, especially a 16-year-old girl.

The school acted absolutely appalled at the way that the officer reacted to the student and fired him from the district. They have all the right to do so. He used way too much force and should be in some type of trouble for it.  The school has asked him to not work at any other school in the district.

While the officer did take it too far, the student should have just listened to her authority figures, and the whole confrontation could have been avoided. Our generation as a whole has been raised to blame the officers, instead of taking responsibility of our own actions.  

The mentality that our society has that all cops are bad people is one of the reasons why we have so many incidents such as these to occur. If the student had listened to her teacher and the officer, the whole incident could have been avoided.  Although the student should have listened to the officer, as should all citizens, the officer was way too extreme in removing the student from the classroom.