I've watched the video and have been following the incident at Spring Valley High School in South Carolina where the school's 'Resource Police Officer' functionally assaulted a 16 year old female student in the classroom. There not only is no excuse for or justification of the officer's assault on this student, but I would also argue that, if even less directly, his police department and the School District/specific school share responsibility.

I'm a Behavior Specialist with a long time focus on very disruptive and aggressive behavior by children with a range up to and beyond 16 years of age. In my world, a client who is verbally abusive/profane, (and I've been cussed out by kids so young they haven't even had full expressive language in place yet!), defiant and may even throw a punch or two is fairly standard; another day at the proverbial 'office.'

And if the girl in this video did throw a punch or two at the police officer (which I'd didn't see in the video I watched), it is far more likely she did so reactively based on the astounding - and potentially criminal - abuse this police officer had already initiated.

Under particular circumstances, when providers/caregivers I am working with engage in actions which knowingly (that they fully know) triggers more explicit disruptive behavior by a child (if certainly to a much, much lower level of intensity than that shown by this police officer) and then come to me asking how they should 'punish' the child based on that child's (very predictable and logical) response to their own error, I often have told them that since the resulting behavior was their doing, to move on and just not represent the same already known trigger the next time.

Furthermore, the classroom and school are not the street and different standards, laws/rules and expectations are absolutely relevant and apply. Student status; whether a given student is receiving special ed services or not...or...whether a student should be considered for special ed services or not are also extremely relevant. In-school social and learning history are also among other important variables to understand.

Putting 'hands on' any student in a school setting also has substantially different criteria than on the street or about anywhere else, for that matter, though I'll note that in this particular circumstance, the officer's behavior bordered on criminal assault regardless of the location. That this was in a school setting actually still further implicates the officer's gross (mis)behavior and negligence even more substantially.

As a relevant aside, in my own years as a Clinical (severe) Behavior Specialist, I've been full out attacked by many persons of many different years of age using everything from fists, teeth, legs, their head and body fluid to physical weapons and at levels of intensity that can sometimes create substantial risk for both me and the disruptive/aggressive individual. I was also a fire department paramedic for a number of years; an activity which often also can lead to being attacked from time to time.

Clearly unlike this officer, however, I have substantial training and extensive experience to, first and foremost, defuse and redirect significant and more at risk and/or disruptive behavioral escalation so as to greatly REDUCE the likelihood of further physical disruption or contact in the first place. I also know how to keep my cool and not overreact.

The first and always primary goal when faced with such an escalated/escalating situation is to remain 'hands off'' and positively defuse/redirect. And there are good formal training systems to teach adults how to be most effective in this regard. When assigned to a school, even police officers should be (and often are) required to take this type of additional training. I'd like to know if the officer at Spring Valley High School had been so certified through one of these available systems.

There are times when there no other alternative exists despite all efforts to the contrary and physical interaction becomes necessary with a more acutely disruptive/aggressive student. But even when physical redirection/interruption strategies do become necessary, it still remains an explicit expectation to always keep them at the absolutely minimum level required to interrupt, redirect and calm things back down towards a positive final outcome.

One thing this means in my own professional experiences is that I've gotten myself hurt from time to time exactly because I always make an extra effort to minimize the degree to which I necessarily and directly intervene. But this is also how physical management of more severe behavioral incidents - especially in school but overall as well - must always be pursued.

With this, of course, there are no acceptable intervention practices anywhere or for any reason - no related training whatsoever - which includes dragging a child from and flipping over their desk in the effort.

This poor excuse for a police officer should be fired outright with criminal assault charges filed should that be justified by a subsequent, and transparent, investigation. He might also be remanded for counseling and anger management supports. It was the officer, not the student, who was clearly and egregiously out of control during this incident.

But this incident also and very likely was not the responsibility of the police officer alone.

The school district and the police agency's relevant guidelines, processes and professional training alike also need to be very closely reviewed since I'd hypothesize that they are also likely implicated, if even indirectly, in this event as well.

Such a review should not only target how 'school resource officers' are trained to work - specifically - in school settings which routinely include an often hugely diverse range of student learning, social, behavioral, cognitive and behavioral need but it should also and absolutely closely look at District guidelines, classroom management procedures and related teacher training/teacher competencies and school wide discipline systems.

In fact, one of the first things I would ask where I to be on that committee is why the police officer was even called into the classroom in the first place for a student refusing to work even if the student had also been profane with the classroom teacher. If selective schools with whom I've worked over the years made police calls for every profane and defiant student, they would have needed their own police precinct located directly in the school!

Law enforcement also and absolutely does not represent any kind of valid instructional/educational or behavioral intervention best practices in such circumstances. I might even go so far as to hypothesize that this was not the first such overreaction to student behavior by either this officer OR other adults in this school.

Why, for instance, would the officer have even believed he could respond this way to begin with in a classroom...?

The officer should no longer be able to be a police officer anywhere and have to answer for his actions in court if further investigation does identify his actions consistent with criminal assault.

But his police department as well as the School District and particular school site also must be examined much more closely for potential improprieties, the use (or non-use) of Best Practices in education and relevant processes to include positive school wide/classroom discipline and support procedures.