The incident that occurred at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina on Monday, October 26, in which a Student Resource Officer named Ben Fields forcefully slammed an uncooperative female student to the ground in class, has gained national attention. The student was allegedly asked by her teacher to get off of her cell phone in class. When she refused, the teacher asked her to leave the classroom.  The student refused again, and Fields was called in to deal with the issue.

Videos have been circulating the internet that detail the altercation that ensued between Fields and the student.  The video begins with Fields saying, “Are you going to come with me or am I going to make you?” Without any warning, Fields flips the student’s desk, throws her across the ground, and drags her out of the classroom. The students in the class are silent and seem to be in shock. Students from Spring Valley High School who were interviewed after the incident shared that Fields has a violent reputation and has gained the nickname “Officer Slam.” Fields has since been fired.

Due to the national outcry for Fields’ arrest and the questions that have surfaced regarding cell phones in the classroom and how student resource officers are supposed to deal with said issues, I spoke with the two officers stationed in Stamford High School, Officers Jim Stackpole and Ken Boyd, to gain their perspectives on the issue and find out what they would have done in a similar situation.

While Stackpole shares that “he doesn’t know enough about it” to form a real opinion on the incident because “they show one thing and then more is coming out that something could have happened beforehand,” he believes that “an officer shouldn’t use that type of force in the classroom.” Boyd agreed. When asked what they would have done in a similar situation, Stackpole said that they may have not even gotten involved in the first place. “It’s really a school administration issue… because they didn’t do anything wrong criminally,” he said.

However, Stackpole said he believes that a more effective way to deal with an uncooperative student is to isolate them by asking the other students in the class to leave.  The officers agreed that being able to talk to the student one-on-one is a more effective way to deal with issues such as these, because students are more apt to open up and not simply act out for the sake of impressing classmates. Stackpole said, “The S.R.O. is a unique position, because you have to balance out educational forum and police forum.”  Their goal is “to have people not arrested and to work things out,” he said.

When students are acting out in classroom and around the community, Stackpole said that the job of an S.R.O. is to look into what other factors are affecting these students’ lives. “We do a lot of home visits and look at kids’ grades,” said Stackpole, which can help them paint a better picture of why the student is acting out in the first place. In a lot of cases, the students have a bad home life and demonstrate their frustration by acting out in school, or seriously struggle in the classroom and act up as a way to divert attention from their struggles.

No matter your opinion on the issue, it is important to recognize the amazing student resource officers around the country like Stackpole and Boyd, who are positively impacting the lives of high school students. The Stamford High School community is very thankful to have these two officers on staff, and appreciates all they do for our students.