Yet Another Case of Police Brutality in the United States (Part 1)

http://nyti.ms/1H7unYA
video: A police officer at Spring Valley High School in South Carolina flips a seemingly unarmed and calm student out of her chair by her neck and drags her across a classroom floor.

This repulsive video has gone viral across the globe this week and is reopening the conversation about police brutality in the United States, a conversation that seems to go on and on. This 16 year-old student was allegedly on her cell phone during her math class and the teacher called the police officer assigned to Spring Valley High School after refusing to leave the classroom. When this student didn't respond to the police officer's commands, she was violently flipped and dragged out of the classroom... for using her cellphone. Many claim that this event could have been avoided if the student had put her phone away and responded to the commands of the teacher and the officer, but there are no means of justification in this situation. The only event I can imagine in which the police officer's actions would have been considered acceptable is if the student was armed with a gun. Students should never be handled physically in a public school environment and this student was. For what cause? A CELLPHONE. The ends do not in any way justify the means here. This event calls for a conversation to be had about racial mistreatment amongst police officers and black people (which is a conversation that really took off about a year ago with the Michael Brown case and many other cases following); as well as a conversation about the general mistreatment of students by teachers and adults with authority and the rights teenagers do or don't have in the United States.

Two snapshots displaying the student's desk being flipped  from the video recorded by another student present at the time of the event.

These are very important conversations to be had. Although there has been a massive light shined on this issue by the media over the past year, it continues to happen again and again. Why is this? How many people have to suffer the unjust circumstances of police brutality until it finally isn't an issue anymore? Nobody should be flipped in a school desk by their neck and dragged across a room for having using a cellphone. A police officer should not be called into a classroom for mild student misconduct, such as cellphone use. This is a mind boggling situation. Rules against cellphones in schools are understandable, since they can be a distraction, but a mere distraction for one girl in math class does not in any way permit the calling of a police officer, regardless of how the cell phone was being used. As of now, the police officer involved (nicknamed "the slam" and "the hulk" by the student body of Spring Valley High for past instances of overly physical interactions with students) was rightfully fired. We will wait and see how this effects the unfortunately common situation of police brutality in the united states.