not anything that she had to do, and entirely wa what he did. that is what we looked at. sheriff, is she facing charges? did the school relay any concerns about deputy fields, because it seemed that they have nicknamed him officer slam, and anything been brought the your attention? no, he has been at that school for seven years and highly respected as a school resource valley, and they wanted him there at spring valley, and he has tremendous support from the faculty and staff and from students there at spring valley. of course, when something like this happens, you have people who come up to say things they have never said before. we have never heard anything about, that and never a complaint, and it is absolutely the totally opposite. if the school can had problems, they wouldn t have allowed him to be a football coach. he was part of that school administration. part of the staff. no signs or indications or anything like that, and you know, i have read and heard some things that
violations. that s up to the fbi. if the criminal charges come, it will come from the united states attorney s office. the students arrested, there is no charge or a change with that at all. they still need to be held accountable for their actions. what deputy fields doesn t excuse them for what they did. and to me that s two separate things. he did wrong, they did wrong also. he s been held accountable for his wrong. they should be held accountable for their wrong also. reporter: sheriff, you mentioned that the teacher and administrator gave statements in support of deputy fields. can you tell us a little more about their statements? what did they support? they felt like everything he did was correct, even the physical part.
jury found he did not do the things he was accused of. reporter: sheriff, can you tell us what ben fields should have done in that situation? i can tell you what he should not have done. what he should not have done is thrown a student. that s what he should not have done. he could have maybe done a lot of things he s trained to do, but he was not trained to throw the student. when you make an arrest from someone who does not have a weapon that you need to escape from, you never let go of that subject. you remain control of the person you re trying to arrest. when he threw her across the room, he lost control of her. that s not acceptable. that s violated our policy. reporter: has deputy fields expressed any remorse to you or to the department? i don t know if the word is remorse. he s sorry that this whole thing occurred. it was not his intent. his intent was not to bring
2:30 out west, this is way too early. good morning, it s wednesday october 28th. i m louis burgdorf, this morning the fbi and justice department have launched investigations after video from a south carolina classroom provoked tough questions about how african-american students are treated. multiple videos showing deputy ben fields, a school resource officer, at spring valley high in columbia slamming a female student to the ground. fields has been suspended without pay, pending an internal investigation. sheriff leon lott of richland county said in a news conference that the student refused to leave the class when both a teacher and administrator asked her to. and refused again when asked by deputy fields. but the sheriff also said he was disturbed by what he saw on the videos.
this area a board meeting was held. most of the parents didn t express a lot of anger. some did. they were particularly angry about the relationship across the country between the police officers and the african-american community. they also talked about the church shooting here in south carolina earlier in the year. that s still very fresh in people s minds. they see this video in that context now. it has created a lot of anger and fear that if the board and the sheriff doesn t deal with this in a way, there will be consequences of that angry episode. the sheriff here has been quick to respond, calling on an independent investigation, within 24 hours, he will have a decision on deputy field s fate. this is something that not only people in richland, but the