Authorities are investigating camera footage from inside a South Carolina classroom which appears to show a male police officer attacking a female student as her classmates watch in shock.
Initially, the Spring Valley High School resource officer asks the student who is sitting at a desk to stand up. When she refuses, he tells her, “I’m going to get you up.”
The officer then picks the student up by her neck and her leg, flipping her and the desk over. He then drags her away from the desk and across the floor, ordering her to put her hands behind her back.
WATCH: Raw footage shows South Carolina officer throw student from desk, drags across floor
Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott told Live 5 News in Charleston, S.C. that the school resource officer, Ben Fields, was acting in response to a student who was refusing to leave class.
“The student was told she was under arrest for disturbing school and given instructions which she again refused,” Lott said. “The video then shows the student resisting and being arrested by the SRO.”
In a statement to the New York Times, Debbie Ham, the superintendent of the Richland Two school district, said officials were “deeply concerned” about the incident, and that district officials were “working closely and in full cooperation” with investigators from the Richland County Sheriff’s Department.
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