‘To the point’ is a wise old adage and avoiding the sanitizing of an event is even better. The recent beating and arrest of a female teenage student in South Carolina, was UGLY, not repugnant, beyond comprehension or difficult to watch, it was just DAMN UGLY!
I don’t know eighteen year old Niya Kenny. Until two days ago, I had never even heard her name, but who can deny her courage in the face of injustice. Ms. Kenny, is a senior at Spring Valley High School in Richland County, South Carolina. The recent events involving the mauling of a fellow student for not complying when asked to leave her classroom, on the grounds her cellphone use was disruptive, have been broadcast on TV stations across the nation (the irony of course, being the incident was filmed by other students on their cellphones). Niya stood and justifiably raised loud objections to the mishandling of her classmate by a police officer, who was also employed by the school. As the student was first put in a choke-hold, grabbed by her clothing, at the scruff of the neck, and hurled two to three feet across the classroom floor, Niya, by her own words, cried, yelled and pleaded for the officer to stop; for this, she too was arrested for disrupting the class.
I listened to the county Sherriff, Leon Lott, explain the officer’s actions and to his credit, subsequently relieved,(pardon me, fired!) Officer Ben Fields of his duty. Words like, pain compliance techniques and student restraint were bandied about. If we saw this altercation on the street, we’d say she was beaten up by a bully. One of the more sobering portions of the video, was the stunned submissive faces of the helpless onlookers, during his onslaught. A rude disruptive teenager, is as old as time in memorium, but allowing the retaliatory brutalization that was witnessed is inexcusable, and Niya Kenny was moved to tears and action. The questions of how this arrest affects her future have to be asked. Will this be a stain on her academic record; will it inhibit future college or career plans? No one seriously justifies a rude or uncooperative student, but tolerating a potential life threatening overreaction by a cop bent on showing who is boss, is abhorrent. Using terms like enhanced control techniques or pain compliance, only fogs the mind of reasonable people trying to sort out a dramatic and traumatic event. Semantics don’t justify wrong behavior, it just makes it palatable, but this should be, just hard to swallow.