It is hard for Jeffrey Rogers to hold his tears back.
The Winston-Salem parent finds it hard to talk about the pain and embarrassment his 16-year-old daughter would have gone through at school when a resource officer used excessive force on her to break up a fight inside the cafeteria.
“She is a little girl and I don’t want to cry because that’s my baby,” added Rogers.
“It hurts my heart to know that a big man cannot control the child.”
Surveillance footage, if captured, is not being made public.
However, an anonymous witness has also posted a video of the incident showing that Officer R White slammed the teenager against a window and then the two fell to the ground.
The African-American girl ended up getting a cut on her head from the fall.
Her mother, Sharon Rogers, says the incident has left them emotionally distressed.
When they went to the emergency room to get help, even talking about what caused the injury was painful.
“The next day, I had to take her to her own doctors because she has been in so much pain and just even talking about something like this, it’s not comfortable.
It’s not comfortable!”
Yet, the police say there is not yet enough evidence to prove that the officer had used unnecessary force, he remains on duty.
As for the Rogers’ daughter, she has been suspended from the Salem/Forsyth County School and will now only be allowed to return to school next year after completing a community involvement program.
For the parents and most observers, there is no doubt that the burly officer used too much force.
“The officer did not have to slam my daughter down to the floor,” said Sharon Rogers.
“Because he was so tall and so built, he could have just put his hands in front of the two girls and could’ve held them just like that until the other authorities that were in the cafeteria came to help him.”
A former police officer and law enforcement expert says although the clip is too short to determine whether excessive force was used, what the cop is doing in the video is on the mark as far as police training is concerned.
“Officers are trained to place somebody on the ground or on the floor as soon as possible because they can control them,” he said.
The family is now considering hiring an attorney to press charges against Officer White.