I don't have a link for it, watched it last night at home. Computer at work has no speakers. I think it was from the local news station where this school is.

Anyone else notice the lack of reaction from the other students? No oohs or aahs, no comments from students saying leave her alone or any comment of any kind.

 

See post 10

See post 10

 

My bad, I skipped through and missed that.

Yeah, except for you are wrong. I don't like participation trophies. Nor do I like kids being assaulted in schools when they are posing zero physical threat to anyone.

 

But it's ok to refuse direction from the teacher and the officer? She was given multiple chances to comply. She was warned what he would do if she didn't follow his direction. She made the choices.

 

There can be and are consequences for choices you make in life. I tell my son that all the time. "You can do whatever you want in life. Be prepared for potential consequences on those decisions you make."

 

I do agree he could have handled it less violently. We only see a minute or so of what happened. People are already talking about the officer's past and reputation, what about this girl? Is she a trouble maker? Is this her first run in with authority?

Does audio matter? What might have been said that would influence your opinion?

 

I could think of several things that could be said to an officer of the law that would influence his reaction to get the hair on his neck standing up. If she is begging for forgiveness and saying Oh I'm so sorry I won't do it again, the office may have acted differently?

Leaving her could have been an option. We all agree she should have left the room when her teacher asked her. She didn't. There are ways to handle it, without violence, since she was posing no threat. And this is off the top of my head, the teacher could have called her parents, could have said, "well, if you are going to act this way, we are going to leave you here", and had the rest of the students go to the cafeteria. Now, would that have disrupted the class, and whatever lesson was planned for the day? Yep, absolutely. But it would have also taught the kids that violence is not the answer to every problem, and that would have been a decent lesson.

As it happened, the kids got front row seats to using violence to solve a problem.

I might have missed it, but no one has mentioned the risk of serious injury that the officer did to the girl? He slammed her down on the floor while in a chair, and then threw her across the floor, both acts pose a serious risk of harm in that a person could hit the floor awkwardly.

Are we so desirous of teaching our kids respect for authority, that we are willing to send our kids to school and have them subjected the violence and the risk of serious physical injury for the offense of being -gasp- a sullen teenager?

If the teacher got frustrated and was doing that to the teen, and then the officer came in and shot the guy as a defense to her, I think there would be near unanimous support for the shooting as we would all see that the girl was being assaulted and subjected to the risk of serious harm.

The world is full of sullen and misbehaving teenagers. There are better ways to teach them respect than by beating it into them.

So your suggestion is to move an entire class to the cafeteria so this girl could remain until her parents got there.

 

And this is the problem with this generation in my opinion. The kid isn't subject to discipline (not assault)and ultimately arrest if she obeys instruction. Shame really. It's all the officer's fault, not the students in many opinions. Typical of the times.

I bet she gets up and leaves the classroom next time she's told...

 

It's a shame if they let her back in the classroom at that school.

Her parents must be proud.

We had a SRO when I was in school and I can't remember them ever being involved in anything like this. He broke up a fight a few times, but even then I don't remember anyone being arrested and definitely no one went to jail. The principal dealt with it. (I also got a stern talking to for leaving about two hundred feet of rubber in the school parking lot one day. :lol2:) I guess my impression of the SRO was that they were there to protect the students/faculty in the event something happened.

 

At any rate, there are things schools do well and things the police do well and I don't think there is very much overlap. It seems the trend is to mingle those roles and I don't like that. This video is an example. There's nothing the officer could have done that the principal or teacher couldn't have done other than what he did. I don't think that's the way behavioral or disciplinary problems ought to be handled in schools. You can't fix social problems through brute force.

I could think of several things that could be said to an officer of the law that would influence his reaction to get the hair on his neck standing up. If she is begging for forgiveness and saying Oh I'm so sorry I won't do it again, the office may have acted differently?

 

I would argue that if you are the SRO and you lost it because of something a kid said to you that SRO isn't for you. It's going to happen.

We had a SRO when I was in school and I can't remember them ever being involved in anything like this. He broke up a fight a few times, but even then I don't remember anyone being arrested and definitely no one went to jail. The principal dealt with it. (I also got a stern talking to for leaving about two hundred feet of rubber in the school parking lot one day. :lol2:) I guess my impression of the SRO was that they were there to protect the students/faculty in the event something happened.

 

At any rate, there are things schools do well and things the police do well and I don't think there is very much overlap. It seems the trend is to mingle those roles and I don't like that. This video is an example. There's nothing the officer could have done that the principal or teacher couldn't have done other than what he did. I don't think that's the way behavioral or disciplinary problems ought to be handled in schools. You can't fix social problems through brute force.

I don't think this was an attempt at all to fix a social problem. I think it was a problem that affected the other students in the classroom that was alleviated. That student's social problems can be handled by the administration finding her some help in another venue than a public school if they aren't appropriately equipped to do so.

Just so we are clear, this child, and she is a child, posed zero threat of physical harm. None. And we are justifying using physical force on her? Force that could have paralyzed her? Or given her a concussion? Really? C'mon people. Put down your guard for a second and think this out. There was no need for any force on her. Was she right, of course not. For those of you that think this is about respect for authority, then let us have the authority act in way that is deserving of respect.

It won't hurt any of you to simply re-think this and see that this use of force was unnecessary and uncalled for. You can still be gungho about all your world views even if you simply say "yeah, he should not have done that."

And this is off the top of my head, the teacher could have called her parents, could have said, "well, if you are going to act this way, we are going to leave you here", and had the rest of the students go to the cafeteria.

 

Probably a 50/50 shot...maybe even less than that, that calling the parents would have done anything much at all...but I can tell you what my dad would have told the teacher/officer if I had done what that girl did..."take him out of that room any way you need to".

 

As to the bolded...are you really serious with this? I'm not saying the officer handled this particular situation 100% correctly, but I can tell you that making all the kids leave the room and go to he cafeteria would have been absolutely the wrong thing to do. If you think what the officer did sent a horrible message, I will argue having the whole class leave and be totally disrupted because of one problem child sends an equally horrible message.

I would argue that if you are the SRO and you lost it because of something a kid said to you that SRO isn't for you. It's going to happen.

 

Agreed. But this issue had escalated from teacher to admin to officer. Object is to maintain yourself as an authority figure.

They say officer had a bit of a history, my guess is she did too. Not a good combination.

Just so we are clear, this child, and she is a child, posed zero threat of physical harm. None. And we are justifying using physical force on her? Force that could have paralyzed her? Or given her a concussion? Really? C'mon people. Put down your guard for a second and think this out. There was no need for any force on her. Was she right, of course not. For those of you that think this is about respect for authority, then let us have the authority act in way that is deserving of respect.

It won't hurt any of you to simply re-think this and see that this use of force was unnecessary and uncalled for. You can still be gungho about all your world views even if you simply say "yeah, he should not have done that."

What does anyone's world view have to do with it?

 

It's simple, obey instruction, follow the rules and you don't end up upside down. Could the officer have handled it differently? Sure. He could have pulled the desk with her in it to the hallway. I'd guess in hindsight he might wish now that he had. But the onus has to be on the child to a large degree. Can't pass it off as simply being a "child".