The depressing lesson a white bully classroom cop has managed to teach every black kid in America today

By Piers Morgan for MailOnline

Published: 09:17 EST, 28 October 2015 | Updated: 11:29 EST, 28 October 2015

Ben Fields, the school resource officer and sheriff’s deputy at the centre of America’s latest police brutality scandal, is a big man.

A very big man.

Well over 6ft tall and comfortably north of 250lbs, in fact.

He’s a competitive power lifter, who enjoys posting macho online videos of himself pumping large quantities of iron.

He can apparently dead-lift 405lbs, squat 940lbs and bench-press 605lbs.

Fields was captured walking into a classroom to deal with an unruly 16-year-old black female student who allegedly refused her teacher’s request to stop using her cell phone. Fields stands over the girl, as she sits

Fields was captured walking into a classroom to deal with an unruly 16-year-old black female student who allegedly refused her teacher’s request to stop using her cell phone. Fields stands over the girl, as she sits

Suddenly he explodes into violence, He puts his burly arm around her throat and flips her and her desk over, crashing backwards onto the floor. It's nauseating to watch - and that nausea quickly turns to rage

Suddenly he explodes into violence, He puts his burly arm around her throat and flips her and her desk over, crashing backwards onto the floor. It's nauseating to watch - and that nausea quickly turns to rage

He even does all this bare-footed, like Arnold Schwarzenegger used to do.

Fields, 34, is also defensive line football and strength coach.

No surprise then that his nickname at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina, is ‘The Incredible Hulk.’

It’s worth bearing all this in mind as you watch the now infamous video of Officer Fields entering a classroom at Spring Valley to deal with reports of an unruly 16-year-old black female student who has allegedly refused her teacher’s request to stop using her cell phone.

Ben Fields is over 6ft tall, north of 250lbs and a competitive power lifter. Now we're told he can't be racist because he dates a black woman

Ben Fields is over 6ft tall, north of 250lbs and a competitive power lifter. Now we're told he can't be racist because he dates a black woman

Fields walks in bristling with muscle and intent.

He stands over the girl, who is 5ft 6in and looks diminutive by comparison, as she sits her desk.

Then, suddenly, he explodes into violence,

He puts his burly arm around her throat and flips her and her desk over, crashing backwards onto the floor.

You might think this would give Officer Fields pause for thought.

But no. He simply tightens his grip, and lifts the girl off the ground like he’s dead-lifting one of his beloved weights.

Then he drags her across the classroom floor by her arms and legs, along with her chair.

As Fields does all this, other students in the class sit in stunned, horrified silence.

It’s an appalling, sickening incident on so many levels.

Indeed, Fields’ boss, Sheriff Leon Lott, said the video made him ‘want to vomit.’

I felt like that too.

But my nausea quickly turned to blind fury.

It’s one of the most repulsive things I’ve ever seen in any school, anywhere in the world.

And it goes to the very heart of America’s most highly-charged racial tinderbox: the relationship between young blacks and white police officers.

Today we were informed that there couldn’t possibly be any racial motivation to Officer Fields’ barbarity because, wait for it, he’s currently dating a black girl.

Of course!

The old ‘but some of my best friends are black!’ defence so popular with many vile bigots.

I’ve no idea if Fields is a racist or not. Nor whether the colour of his victim’s skin determined his actions.

But we don’t ever seem to see videos of white police officers treating young white girls like this, do we?

And can you begin to imagine the outrage if they did?

There are various previous incidents and lawsuits involving Fields’ alleged over-zealous use of force and incendiary verbal abuse against Africa-Americans which suggest he’s not going to win any civil rights prizes.

Even Fields’ boss, Sheriff Leon Lott, pictured here, said the video made him ‘want to vomit’

Even Fields’ boss, Sheriff Leon Lott, pictured here, said the video made him ‘want to vomit’

So I’d say the jury’s very firmly out on his racist sensibilities.

What I do know, incontrovertibly, is that he’s a giant-sized, disgusting bully who likes nothing better than throwing his gargantuan weight around with young girls as they sit in their classrooms.

I don’t exonerate this student from all criticism.

She was clearly behaving inappropriately by refusing multiple requests to stop using her cell phone.

But pinning any blame on her for what Fields did is ridiculous and offensive.

She’s a stroppy kid, a 16-year-old testing authority as millions have done before her. I don’t condone it, but as the father of four children myself I know it can happen.

The best way to deal with disobedience in teenagers is to make it clear where the boundaries lie, and to show them there is a better way to behave.

Lose your temper, lose your self-control, and the argument is lost.

Ben Fields is supposed to be a role model in that school. A symbol of calm, decent authority. A man charged with making sure these students understand where the line is drawn between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.

Instead, he decided to give them a rather different lesson.

One in which police force and brutality is the order of the day.

One in which it’s perfectly OK for a massive older man in uniform to chuck a small teenage girl around like a rag doll.

One in which the rod of iron rules over the rod of instilling respect.

One in which every terrified black student in that classroom now associates white policemen with uncontrolled, senseless violence.

That’s the real tragedy of this video.

Like the recent spate of other cell phone films showing unarmed black men being shot dead by white officers, it merely serves to confirm what most black Americans already think: white cops are out to get them.

And frankly, after watching Officer Fields brutalising this young black girl, I find it very hard to argue with that premise. 

 

 

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