Fields fired after tossing, dragging SVHS student

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO) — The Richland County Sheriff’s Deputy seen in a video grabbing a Spring Valley High School student as she sits in her desk, eventually wrestling her out of the seat and to the ground is out of a job. Fields was the school’s resource officer for seven years and had been suspended without pay since the incident. Lott said the incident started with a “very disruptive student” and the investigation was solely on policy violations. Although Sheriff Leon Lott said the girl’s behavior was wrong, seeing the videos made him want to “throw up.” “My reaction is no different from anyone else saw the video,” he said. Sheriff Lott said, “He was wrong in some of his actions, it’s not what I expect in my deputies; the maneuver used by Fields was not appropriate and did not follow proper procedure.” Fields should not have thrown a student and was never trained to throw a student, Lott said. Sheriff Lott said he spoke to the former deputy and he said,” He is sorry that this whole thing occurred and given opportunity would have done things differently.” “We have to have discipline in our schools,” Lott said. “This student is responsible for starting incident she should be held accountable.” Charges will stand against both girls involved in the incident, Lott said. Lott did encourage people, “Who see law enforcement doing something questionable to record it and bring it to a higher-up’s attention. The students in classroom did the correct thing by filming incident. Citizens should police the police.”