Police deputy officer Ben Fields was fired Wednesday after he was caught on video tossing a student from her desk and across the classroom she was in, a South Carolina sheriff said.
Fields, who worked as a school resource officer at Spring Valley High School in South Carolina, did not follow the proper procedures and training when he tried to take in a student who was disruptive in class, Sheriff Leon Lott said, according to the Associated Press.
Fields was brought in to a classroom after a 16-year-old female student, whose name was withheld, was being troublesome and had been told by her teacher and an administrator to leave the classroom.
Fields told the female student that she was under arrest after she refused. After she refused again, the officer then flipped the student off her desk and tossed her across the classroom as seen in the video.
Fields' attorney, Scott Hayes, said in a statement that his clients were lawful and justified. To that extent we believe that Mr. Fields' actions were carried out professionally and that he was performing his job duties within the legal threshold," the Examiner reported.
This does not mark the first time Fields had gotten in trouble for using excessive force while on duty. In 2007, a motorist accused him of using excessive force while he was still starting out at the police force.
And come January, Fields will be one of 10 defendants expected to answer to a student's case wherein he claims he was wrongly expelled from the same school where the altercation occurred, according to The Huffington Post.
