The New Scarlet Letter for Bad Cops in Classrooms
Ben Fields , a white sheriff’s deputy in South Carolina, was fired after he threw a black female student across a Spring Valley school district classroom floor because the student wouldn’t hand over her phone. Another student recorded the attack on his cell phone. Fields was fired two days after the incident, and Sheriff Leon Lott of Richland County said, “He picked a student up, and he threw the student across the room; that is not a proper technique.... Deputy Ben Fields did wrong this past Monday, so we’re taking the responsibility for that.” No charges have been filed against Fields. To paraphrase the Bible, assholes will always be with us. Thanks to modern cell phones that are everywhere, we can now readily identify who they are. Ben Fields qualifies for this new Scarlet Letter , and in his case, the “A” stands for something Hester Prynne probably knew her accusers to be. JLF