Sheriff says Spring Valley High student 'pops the officer with her fist' in third video

A third video of the student being arrested at Spring Valley High School in South Carolina has surfaced today, and appears to show the student punching resource officer Ben Fields as he begins to grab her and drag her with her desk.

Local news outlet WISTV posted the video earlier today, which they sourced from Instagram:

“It shows that when the officer puts his hands on her initially she reaches up and she pops the officer with her fist,” Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott told reporters at a press conference this afternoon. “There’s no question of that, but does that justify the means, does that justify the end, and that’s what I have to look at.”

Lott also said that Fields “has been dating an African American female” for “quite some time” and that he didn’t think race was a factor in the student’s arrest.

The Justice Department and the F.B.I. are investigating the incident, at the Sheriff’s request. “The Columbia FBI Field Office, the Civil Rights Division, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina have opened a civil rights investigation into the circumstances surrounding the arrest of a student at Spring Valley High School,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge David Thomas in a statement today.