Not that that’s much comfort, but since we had that awful incident here, I thought y’all might be interested in seeing this.
It happened in San Antonio, and the officer was fired:
A Texas school police officer who became enmeshed in controversy after he was captured on video seemingly body-slamming a sixth-grade girl has been fired from the San Antonio Independent School District.
District officials said officer Joshua Kehm was terminated Monday amid an investigation into an incident last month at Rhodes Middle School, in which he appeared to restrain and then throw down 12-year-old Janissa Valdez.
“We understand that situations can sometimes escalate to the point of requiring a physical response; however, in this situation we believe that the extent of the response was absolutely unwarranted,” Superintendent Pedro Martinez said in a statement. “Additionally, the officer’s report was inconsistent with the video and it was also delayed, which is not in accordance with the general operating procedures of the police department….
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It occurs to me that since this happened last month and most people, unlike me, watch TV news, and TV eats up this kind of stuff, y’all may have already seen this.
If so, sorry. It only came to my attention when the officer was fired…
… which, you’ll note, took a lot longer than in our local case. Leon Lott fired his deputy right away, just two days after the incident.
We live in a different world now. Notice all the kids laughing and taking video of the incident of one of their own classmates being restrained by a police officer and taken away. To many of them it’s funny, and something worth laughing about. It’s certainly not something to be concerned about.
Obviously body slamming the student was way over the top- although I can relate to the gut sentiment in such an action. (Last year at my wife’s school a student- while being restrained by the resource officer after she had punched another student in the face, kicked the resource officer hard in the lower leg cause an injury)
Also be sure that by this point, numerous teachers and administrators would have already exhausted all efforts to resolve the situation with various techniques with the student before asking the resource officer to respond.
The students do rule the schools- and they know it.
Actually, it sounded to me that the students WERE concerned, asking the girl if she was OK and such.
But it’s hard to tell from something like this. These videos tend to be so badly shot that much is left up to interpretation. Rare is the video that really shows what’s happening. The video of the shooting of Walter Scott in North Charleston is one of the few where what is happening seems clear — partly because the bystander shooting the video was far enough away to provide a full view of the scene — AND the fact that he had the presence of mind to hold his phone horizontally…
They were asking if she was ok AFTER she was on the ground, motionless. The video is quite clear. A girl in a gray shirt is laughing with her phone in her hand trying to video it. They were enjoying it up until the body slam.
Typical kids these days- enjoying things that are going wrong- until they go way, way, way wrong.
But isn’t that they way kids have always been–enjoying “things going wrong” until consequences bring the “fun” to a halt?
I think what Karen is trying to say is: “It’s all fun and games until someone gets poked in the eye.“
Search Youtube for “worldstar class fights”. It’s a joke to many students. They film themselves with the fights going on in the background and yell “World Star”. A “brand” name for general thug activity. One video of students fighting in a classroom has 700K views.
Anyone wonder why we now need to have police officers in schools? Remember the good ol’ days when teachers and administrators could handle students? You know, back when parent’s were parents and not trying to be their kid’s best friend. Bring back the paddle… the one with holes in it to improve the aerodynamics.