Spring Valley High student's lawyer says she suffered several injuries

The lawyer for the Spring Valley High School, S.C., student who was filmed being violently dragged from her desk by a school resource officer this week says the student suffered several injuries during the incident.

“She now has a cast on her arm, she has neck and back injuries. She has a Band-Aid on her forehead where she suffered rug burn on her forehead,” lawyer Todd Rutherford told Good Morning America today.

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said yesterday that the girl “may have had a rug burn” but was otherwise uninjured. He placed the officer involved, Ben Fields, on administrative duty on Monday, pending an investigation. Lott will be announcing the results of that internal inquiry at noon local time today. Rutherford said Fields should have been fired immediately when the video surfaced.

“They simply stood behind their officer. They are going to wait 48 to 72 hours to determine whether he did anything wrong, when the rest of the world can determine instantly that something is wrong, that you should never treat a child that like, that a classroom is not a wrestling mat,” Rutherford told ABC News yesterday.

Fields has been sued before in two separate incidents for alleged racial profiling and use of excessive force.

Lott has asked the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate the incident, in additional to the internal review. He said at a press conference yesterday that a third video of the classroom arrest shows the student as she “pops the officer with her fist” while he is grabbing her. “There’s no question of that,” he said. “But does that justify the means, does that justify the end, and that’s what I have to look at.”