Deputy Ben Fields brutally assaulting a female student while the class looks on.

Deputy Ben Fields brutally assaulting a female student while the class looks on.

South Carolina Deputy Ben Fields asked a female student at Spring Valley High School to stand up and leave the room, when she didn't stand up within seconds, he sprang into violent action and brutally threw her (and her desk) around the room. A fellow student captured the whole thing on video:

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott was out of town for meetings, but he wasted no time:



Sheriff Leon Lott is requesting the Federal Bureau of Investigations for South Carolina and the U.S. Justice Department to conduct an independent investigation of the incident at Spring Valley high school. A Richland County school resource officer has been placed on administrative leave following an incident that was captured on video and circulated on social media sites across the nation. Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said late Monday night that Deputy Ben Fields will not be back at any school, and is not currently working for the department, pending the results of an investigation.

"I know this girl don't got nobody and I couldn't believe this was happening," Kenny explained. "I had never seen nothing like that in my life, a man use that much force on a little girl. A big man, like 300 pounds of full muscle. I was like 'no way, no way.' You can't do nothing like that to a little girl. I'm talking about she's like 5'6"." Kenny says her classmate was not participating and was asked to leave the room by her teacher. When she refused an administrator was called in and asked her to leave. She refused and Officer Fields was called in, asking her the same thing.

According to the complaint, Carlos Edward Martin was driving home and got out of his car when Fields approached him and asked if he was the source of an excessive noise complaint that the officer was investigating. Martin claimed that Fields "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 [sic] depleted," according to court documents.

In that lawsuit, former Spring Valley High School student Ashton James Reese claims he was unlawfully expelled from school in 2013. At the time, Fields was investigating alleged gang activity at the school. Reese claimed several offenses in the suit, including lack of due process, negligence, negligent supervision and a violation of the right to public education -- as mandated by state law.

A second student was arrested when she tried to intervene in the violent arrest: This isn't the first excessive force complaint against Ben Shields. From a 2007 lawsuit: Deputy Fields about to go to trial in another suit: