The South Carolina incident is pale in comparison to what happened to a 17-year-old boy in a Texas high school, an attorney revealed last week.
Adam Loewy represented Noe Niño de Rivera, a teenager who had to spend 52 days in a medically induced coma after a police officer tased him at school two years ago.
November 20 will be the second anniversary of the horrific incident, but Rivera still suffers horrible after-effects of the tragedy that befell as he was trying to break up a fight.
Caught on camera
The school surveillance video shows what happened.
Rivera’s girlfriend and another girl ended up having an argument the day of the incident.
He was trying to break them up.
This is when Bastrop County Sheriff’s Deputy Randy Mcmillan arrived with another who source officer.
In the footage, Rivera can be seen stepping away from the officer when he was tasered and fell to the floor.
The boy fell unconscious when he struck the ground; Mcmillan placed him in handcuffs as he lay listless in the school’s corridor.
Delay in providing medical assistance
As if the violent encounter was not enough, school officials decided to wait before calling paramedics. Once Rivera was taken to the local hospital, doctors decided he needed to be airlifted to St David’s Medical Center in Boston.
There he went through extensive surgery to mend a brain hemorrhage and subsequently placed in a medically induced coma that lasted just under two months.
According to Loewy, like Ben Fields the perpetrator of the body slamming incident in South Carolina, Mcmillan had a history of aggression against students.
In addition to this, the institution did not have any policy to determine issues with school resource officers.
Rivera ended up at a rehabilitation centre after a surgery, but his recovery is far from over.
“You cannot sustain that sort of injury and just be the same,” said Loewy.
Mcmillan was cleared of all charges.
A pattern of violence
The lawyer added that it is time officers are “criminally accountable school” for the use of excessive force.
He was referring to the county’s decision vindicate Mcmillan of the allegations.
According to him, irrespective of how severe and incident is officers are always cleared of responsibility.
“I would submit that’s one of the major problems here, is that officers simply believe they will not get in criminal trouble for what they do—which is the truth.
It’s extremely rare.
And until that changes, we will continue to see videos that are horrific like this,” he said.
Watch the video below: