To get a feeling for what that means, watch this video of a police officer in a Columbia, S.C. high school wrenching an African-American girl from the desk where she is seated, hurling her to the floor, then dragging her across the room.
According to the local sheriff, the officer was summoned to deal with “disruptive” classroom behavior of the sort that would once have been dealt with at the principal’s office — but that now leads to body slams and handcuffs.
This video is reminiscent of one taken earlier this year showing a white police officer in McKinney, Texas throwing a bikini-clad black girl to the ground during a dispute that took place at a neighborhood swimming pool.
The South Carolina case also brings to mind a horrific event in Texas two years ago in which a sheriff’s deputy, responding to a school fight that had already ended, gratuitously Tased 17-year-old Noe Niño de Rivera. The teenager hit his head on the floor, suffered a massive brain hemorrhage and had to undergo emergency surgery. He was placed in a medically induced coma for 52 days.
What a great country this is, the “best on earth” right?
Watch this and see who we really are. We are a police state.
WHEN WILL VIOLENCE AGAINST BLACK AND BROWN SCHOOL CHILDREN STOP? WHEN WILL SCHOOLS BE SCHOOLS AGAIN IN OUR POLICE STATE?
Frank Schaeffer is a writer. His latest book —WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD: How to give love, create beauty and find peace