Officer Slam as a Metaphor for the US Imperium

This news was actually meant to be part of a post about recent police state news, as was the murder of Darren Seals.  But both seemed so worthy of stand-alone posts that I’ve split them off in order to provide a fuller focus on each. You’ll recognize the event; we’ve spoken of it here before.

But as you read, you might want to consider the ease which with this story slots so easily and emblematically into the greater USian institutional zeitgeist, from NATO to multiple security state agencies, FP command-and- control war crimes impunity/apologia to IMF default austerity resets to the lies our media, leaders and would-be leaders tell…and are almost always believed.  But in the end, one of the key features, I think, is that the main crime of the recipients of such horrors…boils down to ‘Failure to Obey™.  And of course as dissidence gets stronger, all of these forces against us will increase to an order of magnitude, at the very least.

‘Officer Slam’ Won’t Face Charges in Brutal Classroom Assault of Young Black Girl’, Sept. 3, 2016  ‘Ben Fields Told Investigators Student Punched Him, Fell Backward Due to ‘Momentum’, John Wright

“In video of the incident that went viral (above), Fields can be seen ripping the student out of her desk and throwing her across the floor after she refused a teacher’s request to leave for using her cellphone. 

The student suffered a fractured wrist and bruises, and Fields was later terminated. However, following an 11-month investigation, prosecutors determined the officer’s actions didn’t rise to the level of a crime, BuzzFeed News reports. 

Fields, whom students nicknamed “Officer Slam” due to his reputation for violence, had previously faced two lawsuits for targeting African-Americans.

In a written statement, Fields told investigators the (sic) the student punched him in the face and fell backward “because of the momentum that the student’s movements had created,” BuzzFeed reports. Fields claimed he was trying to pull her out of the chair, but her foot was caught.

“As I continued to use the muscling technique [no, it as a chokehold, Officer Friendly] the students leg broke free from the lock the student had on the desk and the student slid across the floor,” Fields wrote.

The student was also detained on suspicion of disturbing schools, a misdemeanor, but prosecutors concluded there wasn’t enough evidence to charge her.”

Now of course any of the school personnel could have and should have, defused all of this earlier, but all of them seem to have gotten their inner Rambos on because: the student (we now as Shakara) failed to obey her betters.

If you can stand digging into Officer Slam’s history, heavy.com has ‘Deputy Ben Fields: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know’ from Oct. 29, 2015  (the photos will curl your hair)

1. Fields Told the Student ‘Are You Coming With Me or am I Going to Make You?’

“[co-student] Robinson said he could tell Fields was going to do something as soon as he arrived. He said Fields moved the girl’s laptop and then told another student to move a desk out of the way.

“I’ve never seen anything so nasty looking, so sick to the point that other students are turning away,” Robinson said. “They’re just scared for their lives. That’s supposed to be someone that’s going to protect us. Not somebody to be scared of.”

Students in the classroom sit, most in silence, as Long, the teacher, and administrator also watched. In a second angle of the video, Fields can be heard telling another student, “I’ll put you in jail next.” Watch that angle below:

Classmate Niya Kenny was screaming and praying out loud at Officer Slam’s violent assault; she was  was charged with disturbing school, a misdemeanor, and released on $1,000 bail.

One of the reasons that she was quiet was that both her grandmother and mother had died recently, leaving her orphaned and in a new school.

After he was fired by the school district,  protest by students some students staged a protest; they’d made T-shirts supporting him, laughed and laughed in their video; many were young black men and women, go figure.  But the prevailing opinion of his supporters was that “she (Shakara) was tryin’ to be a badass!”.

2. He Is Accused of ‘Recklessly’ Targeting ‘African-American Students With Allegations of Gang Membership’

One lawsuit:

“Deputy Fields became agitated when Plaintiff Carlos Martin, with absolutely no disrespect, addressed Deputy Fields using the colloquial term ‘dude,’” the lawsuit states. “Despite (Martin’s) attempts to assure the Deputy that he intended no disrespect, Deputy Fields nevertheless became increasingly angry. Deputy Fields’ unprovoked anger escalated to the point that he grabbed (Martin), slammed him to the ground, cuffed him, began kicking him, and chemically maced him until his clothing was drenched and the contents of the can of mace was depleted.”

According to the lawsuit, Fields later seized a cell phone from Martin’s wife, Tashiana Rogers, and never returned to her. He also arrested her. Rogers, who was then Martin’s wife, said she recorded the incident on video, and that’s why the phone was seized. The charges against both were later dropped when the prosecution failed to show up for court.”

3. Students Say They Saw Fields ‘Slam’ Students, Including a Pregnant Girl, for Years

What comment could possibly suffice?

4. Fields, Also a Football Coach & Power Lifter, Became a Cop 11 Years Ago After Junior College

“Ben Fields displays his powerlifting prowess in a now-removed YouTube video.

Fields said in during his deposition for a federal lawsuit filed against him that he is a competitive power lifter, saying it is a “sport,” where you “try to lift as much as you can at one time.”

In his deposition, Fields says he does not take steroids, but has not been tested for steroids in the past. He said he has taken supplements, including Creatin, to help build muscles.

Students said on Twitter they were afraid of Fields because of his stature:

Over a dozen students told me that Officer Ben Fields is built like a bodybuilder. Said they were all scared to death of him.

— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) October 26, 2015

Tom Cleary synopsizes his career from working for his daddy’s Chrisitan ministry for a year to cop; but oh: he’s dating a black woman, so he can’t be a racist.

5. He Received the ‘Culture of Excellence’ Award Earlier Last Year for Being a ‘Role Model’

(again, the rest is here.)

And of course there’s an ongoing Hashtag: #AssaultAtSpringValleyHigh if you want more news of both outrage and of course support.

And at least this:

‘Her Name Is Shakara: Spring Valley High Victim Refused to Comply With Unfair Punishment, As 100 Students Stage Walkout For Fired Deputy’, atlantablackstar.com

““She could have been left alone,” said Todd Rutherford, Shakara’s attorney, as reported in the Los Angeles Times. “She wasn’t yelling. She wasn’t disrupting the class. She wasn’t a threat to anyone.” Rutherford added that his client did not obey orders to leave the classroom because “she thought it was unfair punishment,” Rutherford added. “She had already put her phone away.”

Shakara has a cast on her right arm, a swollen neck, back and shoulder, and a carpet burn on her forehead, the attorney said. “She’s bruised and battered and hurt — physically and emotionally,” he noted, “what you would expect after being tossed across the room like a rag doll.”

“My thought is that you don’t treat a dog that way,” he added. “We don’t treat animals like that, let alone children. What happened was wrong, what you might expect to happen in a Third World country.” Rutherford has set up a GoFundMe page for donations to the orphaned teen.

Both the victim and her classmate–Niya Kenny, who came to Shakara’s aid–still face misdemeanor charges of “disturbing schools,” carrying a $1,000 maximum fine and up to 90 days in jail. On Monday, Kenny spent 8 1/2 hours in a detention center.”

Yeah, he wrote it to protest the IMF, but it works for a hella lot of other issues, doesn’t it?

North South East West
Kill the best and buy the rest
It’s just spend a buck to make a buck
You don’t really give a flying fuck
About the people in misery

See the loaded eyes of the children too
Trying to make the best of it the way kids do
One day you’re going to rise from your habitual feast
To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
They call the revolution

(the rest of the lyrics)