The video is stunning.
A muscular cop leans over a skinny schoolgirl, flips the chair in which she sits, sending her to a hard fall to floor on her back. Before she can disentangle herself from the desk chair, she is seized and thrown across the room, like a ragdoll. She is immediately handcuffed and arrested, for “disturbing” her classroom.
According to published accounts, she was said to have been a non-participant in class and ordered to leave the classroom. When she refused to leave, the schools so-called “resource” officer was notified. When policeman Ben Fields arrived at the classroom, he went into Rambo mode on the child! The rest is infamy.
Several months ago, a video showed a mad “Robocop” assaulting a young teenaged girl in a bikini. This latest police attack on a young girl is almost identical—except it happened in a classroom. Consider this: the girl in class never assaulted anyone. She merely refused to leave. Was this more “disturbing” than the madcap cop response which looked more at home in a WWE ring than a classroom?
It tells us the nature of public schools, and more ominously, the nature of police. Are cops there to protect the students—or the staff from the students? What is the function of teachers, to teach obedience—or to teach freedom? Events such as these show us an ugly, unpopular, uncomfortable truth about American schools and how they interact in the lives of children, especially Black children.
The imagery of a beefy Black cop throwing a white teenaged girl across a classroom would’ve evoked an immediate response. That this has not speaks volumes about the degraded value of the lives and well-being of Black children in America today.
![Prison Radio is sharing an abbreviated version of a press release covering recent racist incidents at SCI Rockview in PA and the organizing to demand accountability. We are reaching out to people incarcerated at Rockview as well as recently transferred folks, inviting them to call, in hopes of hearing commentaries from them.
Benner Township, PA.-
On November 24th, 2023, imprisoned people at SCI Rockview found two nooses hanging in the CO’s office, displayed visibly for many prisoners to see. When the prisoners asked the staff why the nooses were hung, they were told it was a joke.
By December 4th, prisoners filed a grievance to document what they saw, noting that the hanging of the nooses was “unethical, racially motivated, hateful, [a] deliberate debasement of black inmates" and “unsafe for inmates, staff, [and] the whole prison in general.” In the grievance, they demanded that Sgt. Mosser and CO Richard be fired and investigated for a hate crime, and for CO Kirchner to get therapy. Captain Andrews, the head of security, denied the grievance.
The sergeant and COs are still working in the prison to this day, with no repercussions...
As of March 10th, prisoners have reached out to Pennsylvania officials at the Dept. of Corrections in a letter campaign, sending 100 copies of the grievance. Copies of the letter also were mailed to Governor Shapiro, Senator Fetterman, Senator Street, and various advocacy groups. The demands for relief in the original grievance have now become the platform of demands for this campaign. About 20 of the 100 letters were withheld by the prison.
Activists on the outside are joining forces with prisoners to elevate their demands, flooding the phone lines of DOC offices, assisting with outreach to media, and circulating the stories of prisoners who have found unity in opposition to the facility's virulent institutional racism.
In any other workplace, hanging a noose would be grounds for immediate termination. However, Nicki Paul, the superintendent's assistant and "grievance coordinator" informed the public that they self-investigated their staff and found they did nothing wrong.
Read the full article at i
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