Texas School Police Officer Body Slams 12-Year-Old Girl

A rather extreme bit of action, wouldn't you agree?

While I am sure most of us have seen the video, one has to wonder if the officer in question handled this the best he could.

Certainly the young lady was noncompliant, but was it to the degree where such force was necessary?


But I think what this also illustrates is the use of phones to record such incidents. Is there actually an increase in the frequency of the use of heavy force by the police agaisnt civilians, or is it simply less likely to be covered up due to the prevalence of recording equipment? Perhaps years ago complaints about excessive police behavior would be ignored, or always decided in favor of the police, but when videos like those of this incident are public, it makes it much more difficult.

Counter to that, is fear of being caught on such video causing police to be overly cautious at the expense of the safety of the public? Are they less likely to act in potentially dangerous situations because they actions may be interpreted negatively? Or they may feel unable to protect themselves?

http://ktla.com/2016/04/07/video-shows-texas-school-officer-body-slamming-12-year-old-girl/

An officer lifts a middle-school student into the air and slams her to the ground.

She lies motionless as he handcuffs her. Some students shout out; others laugh as she’s escorted away.

The cell phone video, which spread rapidly after it was posted online this week, has sparked investigations by police and school officials in San Antonio, Texas, CNN affiliate WOAI/KABB reported.

“It’s very concerning. It’s alarming to see this,” San Antonio Independent School District spokeswoman Leslie Price told WOAI/KABB. “And while we want to get all the details, I want people to know that excessive force will not be tolerated in this district.”

Gloria Valdez told the CNN affiliate that her 12-year-old daughter is the girl shown in the video.

“You could just hear where she hits the ground. And it’s nothing but concrete, cement,” she said. “She wasn’t moving. She was just knocked out. I wanted answers, and nobody could give me answers.”

The officer, according to Valdez, told her “he did what he had to do at that moment.”

The school district told WOAI/KABB that the officer had been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of its investigation.

This isn’t the first time school police officers have been accused of using excessive force.

Last year, a police officer working at a South Carolina school was fired after video circulated on social media showing him violently removing a student from her desk.

That video sparked widespread outrage and questions about what role police should play in schools. At the time, the officer’s attorney defended him, saying his actions were justified.

Last month, the Baltimore school system’s top cop and two others officers were placed on administrative leave after the release of a cell phone video showing one of the officers slapping and kicking a young man. Now the officers are facing assault charges in the case.

About 43% of all U.S. public schools — including 63% of middle and 64% of high schools — had school resource officers on their grounds during the 2013-2014 school year, the National Center for Education Statistics said in Ma

 

Remember after Newtown when the NRA guys told us to put armed guards in every school.

Naturally, they didn't take into consideration what happens if.....the GUARD goes nuts?

 

Strangely left out of the article and video is what led up to it. The video starts like a split second before the body slam but even then she looks like she is being escorted out and resisting.

I will wait for more information to draw a conclusion.

 

looks i would of done the same years ago in the casinos, the girl was back kicking at him and resisting

 

yeah there was more before the take down the video doesn't show it, because they the owners of the tape or media cut in out in the beginning to make the officer look more extreme
she appears to trying to kick the officer from behind [video=youtube;__GRdC_J_ng]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__GRdC_J_ng[/video]

 

Why oh WHY did he have to shoot the poor girl?? Couldn't he have tazed her of slammed her to the floor before he shot her and the other students??

The link locked my computer up so I didn't see the video but I have a 12 year old GD and she has a very hard head. When she gets all puffed up I just take her home and let her mother deal with her.

 

the problem is the mother she didnt teach her daughter to obey the security /police once they arrived on the scene and stop .. when i was in school we never fought in class room setting, we took it out after recess in the school yard female fights were very rare as i remember, now there common that in it self, says somethings really wrong with our society.

 

Here's the thing. Back in my day we were taught to respect adults as children. A better question would be "Why is the child back-kicking the police officer?".

 

another is why did this mother raise a wild cat , and what happen to the father in a family why wasn't he there for the interview..

 

Should have just tazed the wild beast.

 

Let me see, the cop can't partially shoot her just a little bit, he can't partially tase her just a little bit, but he can physically control her with as much force as needed. I have no problem with this unless the kid had some sort of mental problems which caused her to not act normal, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

 

First of all, I'd like to see more than just the initial slam and see what transpired beforehand. Secondly, if you can't get through to a student verbally, physical is the next approach. Without discipline, we'll continue to see kids like today's college students that get traumatized over chalk words. It's up to the parents to teach their children to obey other adults.

Had that been me in Middle School (1990), the first thing my parents would have done is ask why it happened and get to the real story. Had I been an ******** and caused it by not listening to an adult like I'd been taught, I would have been whooped and grounded. Had I just been slammed for no reason, I don't know what would have happened to the cop, but my dad didn't put up with stuff like that so most likely, the cop would have been slammed and beaten.

Because of the way I was disciplined, if this ever happens to one of my kids, I'll get the story first and if they were disrespectful, they'll get whooped. If they didn't do anything wrong, I'll sue since we live in a pansy coward society and fighting is no longer allowed.

 

This should be a training video. All school kids should be required to watch it once a month. This is not excessive force , this is what will happen to disrespectful children.

 

So I can do the same to my kids when they act up in the safety of my own home without the rabid right wing idiots calling the police on me for abusing children?

You're all hypocrites.

 

Why didn't mommy tell her little brat how to behave .

 

Hell she wasn't even hurt. Looks like his maneuver was used properly. A take down for resisting and not a single bruise or scratch.

 

Looks like another spoiled brat that refuses to follow the rules and disrupts class for others.

 

No, sorry, that's excessive force.

 

Haha. You think we're the ones calling police for people disciplining their kids? If your kid is kicking you and you slam her to the ground, more power to ya. You're getting your political parties mixed up though.

 

If she did nothing wrong, that is definitely excessive force. But it's been shown that one can easily be of the opinion that she was resisting and trying to kick him. Because of that, this isn't excessive force. Only other option would have been to let her go so that you can prove you're a pushover and don't meet the requirements of an officer of the law.

 

It doesn't take much force to break a knee. So if she was back kicking the police officer and connected with his knee cap she would be in jail for assault on a Police Officer and he would be out of work for some time. Take downs like this are needed to protect the people that are meant to protect us.

 

Even if she did something wrong, she presented no immanent physical threat to him. I watched it and it looks to me like she was simply struggling in his grasp of her.

If he can't control a little girl like that, esp at his size, it indicates a number of things.

He doesn't have the respect of the kids.
He's likely got a tendency to escalate things rapidly rather than trying other methods.

There are plenty of other options one of which would have been to pin her against a wall to facilitate hooking her up. Face-slamming her into a polished concrete floor (and it looks like she lost consciousness) is WAY over the top.

There's a lot we don't know about what happened prior to this video starting, but absent anything else, that guy is up (*)(*)(*)(*) creek and it's by his own doing

 

Yes you can slam as needed. No objections here.

 

I don't get the impression that she was attempting to kick him, but rather escape his grasp.

Take downs are indeed necessary to protect officers. This is not one of them.

 

???? The right wing would argue that it is up to the parents to determine how to raise their own children and for the government stay out of such matters. Its the left that tries to supplant parental decision making governmental decision making.

And the girl isn't hurt. Doesn't seem to even be in pain. He used the amount of force necessary. Anything less, and she would have continued the fight...... but, had he fractured her skull, the calculations would change. Id say it was an unadvisable, risky move that fortunately worked out well.