Her teacher had apparently asked her to put her cell phone away, which she refused to do; and then when he called for reinforcements (a policeman described as weighing about 300 pounds), she also refused to follow his directive to leave the room with him.
So, this is just a thought; could she have been afraid to leave with the policeman? After all, more than a few people have ended up on the opposite side of alive during confrontations with police officers. I'm a grown woman and I would have been nervous at the thought of leaving alone with him. Just a thought
In any event, this entire fiasco ended with the young lady being forcefully removed ... okay knocked out of her seat and thrown across the room like a rag doll. What!
It was a horrendous sight. I'm sure many people thought about how they would have felt if this had happened to one of their own children.
In discussing this incident with colleagues, one man asked just what was the policeman supposed to do. After all, the girl wouldn't leave, and although he didn't agree with how far things had gone, he was clearly sympathetic with the officer, who he felt was in an untenable situation.
I personally don't know exactly how he should have proceeded to achieve the desired conclusion to the incident. But then, I'm not the trained professional, that's his job.
Here is what I do know:
1). Going for the jugular of a 16-year old unarmed, non-resisting female was hardly the appropriate response. And their lame excuse that she was hitting him with her fist ... well yeah ... he had his beefy arm around her neck and was dragging her out of her chair with such force, she and the chair fell over backwards.
2). Even I know that peer pressure among teens is rough and extremely influencing. She might have felt that her back was against the wall and was trying not to look like a Woose among those peers. As a trained professional, his job should have been to take this possibility into account and offer her a way out; such as asking - not demanding - her to leave the room so they could talk about what had happened to precipitate the incident.
3). In such a situation the officer's role should have been to deescalate the incident, even if it meant clearing the room and dealing with her right there, not through force, but a little conversation.
4). And finally, these are our children. We're trying to save them, not kill them ( which clearly could have happened in the form of a broken neck or back).