BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- A federal judge has denied requests by Birmingham police and one assistant high school principal to be dismissed from a federal lawsuit that claims officers violated students' constitutional rights by using pepper spray on them to control routine misbehavior.

"The most important thing is that the judge feels this case needs to go to trial," Ebony Howard, lead attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of students, said this morning.

Attorneys for the police and assistant principal said they will appeal the ruling.

U.S. District Court Judge Abdul Kallon, in a 52-page opinion and order, denied motions by the police officers and Carver High School Assistant Principal Anthony Moss to dismiss the lawsuit against them. The judge had previously dismissed the Birmingham city school system and superintendent from the lawsuit.

Kallon did dismiss one of the claims against one of the six school resource officers named in the lawsuit. The judge also denied Birmingham Police Chief A.C. Roper's motion to be dismissed from the lawsuit in his official capacity, but granted the chief's motion to dismiss him from the suit in his individual capacity.

"To say that this lawsuit, like most, started with contentious allegations would be a huge understatement," Kallon wrote in his opinion. "Allegations are, of course, not proven facts. Instead, each defendant will eventually receive an opportunity to tell his or her side of the story.

"However, when a defendant asks the court to grant summary judgment and dismiss a case, as the defendants here have done ... the court is required to view the disputed facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs," Kallon wrote.

The SPLC filed the lawsuit in 2010 on behalf of eight named students who were hit by pepper spray.

The lawsuit claims police officers working at the schools as school resource officers _ or SROs _ have used pepper spray for what are really just behavioral problems that don't pose a threat to the officers. The center has stated in court documents that since 2006, more than 100 school children in Birmingham have been pepper sprayed, although more recently center officials put that number at 200.

SPLC officials have said that Birmingham police don't have a specific policy, or training, for use of pepper spray against students in schools. It's the same policy for officers on the streets.

Kallon recently granted class action status to the case to represent all current and future high school students of Birmingham City Schools. Birmingham has appealed the class action ruling to the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In his ruling filed Wednesday Kallon agrees that based on the allegations the pepper spray was used against students for minor infractions.

"In viewing the facts in a light most favorable to Plaintiffs, it appears that, at best, the most severe crime any Plaintiff (student) engaged in was disorderly conduct or resisting arrest. Disorderly conduct is, of course, not a serious offense warranting use of force, including the use of non-deadly force like mace," Kallon wrote. "Similarly, resisting arrest without force does not rise to a level of dangerousness that justifies the type of force used here."

"Ultimately, defendants (officers) may well succeed in establishing that the plaintiffs (students) posed a threat," Kallon wrote. "However, that determination is one for a jury to make at the appropriate juncture. At this stage in the litigation, based on these alleged facts, the court simply cannot conclude that, as a matter of law, the SROs used the Freeze+P (pepper spray) justifiably."

Moss is named in the lawsuit for one specific incident involving a student identified only as T.A.P.

The judge wrote that Moss' "admitted conduct borders on child abuse and is precisely the type of behavior that creates a strong inference of 'legal malice or wicked motives.'"

According to the judge's order Moss is alleged to have tripped a student who was trying to leave campus after she was accused of smoking cigarettes. She had not been smoking, according to the SPLC.

After she tripped and fell, Moss is alleged by the student to have stepped on her back to restrain her. Once she got up, she accidently hit the school resource officer with her backpack as she swung around, according to the judge's order.

T.A.P. alleges she fled when she saw the SRO reach for his gun belt. She says she was caught and sprayed as Moss and two other men held her down, according to the judge's order. But Moss has denied ever having contact with the student during the incident.

The student alleges in the lawsuit that she suffered "swelling in her face and eyes, temporary blindness, difficulty breathing, and peeling of the skin around her eyes."

Kallon stated that officers could have waited to arrest the student at home.

Moss' attorney, Mark Boardman, said the girl (T.A.P.) misrepresented the facts of the incident, Boardman said. "For someone who has dedicated his life to education he has no reason to do what this student alleges ... He's (Moss) got a good heart," he said.

"It's regrettable that a disruptive student interrupted the education of her classmates," Boardman said.

Howard said the tragedy is what long-term impact there may be from allowing pepper spray to be used in schools. "Birmingham youth have learned to distrust authority figures as a result of the actions of these police officers, who are supposed to protect them."

Howard, in a prepared statement issued today, said Birmingham police should be protecting the students instead of spending tax dollars to defend its use ini schools. "The fact that this brutal practice has continued for so long is truly an embarrassment for the city of Birmingham," she said.

Michael Choy, an attorney for Roper and the officers, shot back in prepared comments that the Southern Poverty Law Center's allegations implicate pulling all Birmingham Police Officers out of the Birmingham High Schools as the solution to the alleged problems. "Indeed, this would shield the police officers from further exposure in this and other lawsuits on behalf of the thugs and bullies who choose to behave in a manner that requires police presence in schools in the first place, and from the SPLC's demands that they be paid attorneys' fees by the officers."

"The police officers can then focus their attention on maintaining law and order in the streets and to protecting and serving the public," Choy said.

Choy wrote in his statement that the police chief and officers will be appealing Kallon's order denying dismissal to the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. "The court's order contains numerous errors of law that provide Chief Roper and the officers bases for appeal," he wrote.

Another appeal by Roper and the others in the lawsuit is already pending before the 11th Circuit in response to Kallon's order granting class action status to the lawsuit.

Updated at 12:55 p.m. Oct. 4, 2012 to add comments from an attorney representing the police chief and officers and another comment from SPLC