Earlier this week many Americans were once again shocked by another disturbing viral police brutality video. In the most recent video — which took place in a classroom — a young black teenage girl was choked, flipped out of her seat, dragged, and thrown like a bag of garbage by a uniformed police officer before being arrested.
The young girl refused to hand her cell phone to the teacher during math class and refused to get out of her seat when instructed to by the officer. The officer in question has since been fired.
Niya Kenny was in the classroom during the incident. She was also arrested for yelling and screaming at the officer as he manhandled her classmate. Kenny was arrested under the controversial South Carolina “Disturbing School Law.” The law has been in place since the 1970s and it allows school resource officers to arrest students who disturb, disrupt, or interfere with school classes or functions.
However, the video once again shined attention to a problem often overlooked when we talk about police brutality.
Most police brutality videos focus on white cops assaulting young black males, however, there are a disturbing number of cases of white police officers escalating excessive force against young black females as well. Who could forget this image?
In June, we broke the story of the now former McKinney, Texas police officer (shown in the above photo) who walked over and grab the 14-year-old girl by the hair, then forced her face into the dirt. Her only crime was that she may have gotten “mouthy.” You can read the complete story and watch the video here.
Now imagine that? A teenage girl with a “smart mouth”?
For most teenage girls in America, talking back is a very typical teenage behavior. However for black teenage girls, this behavior — along with other negative behaviors such as fighting, gossiping, teasing, cursing and even laughing — can get them put into handcuffs. This is definitely not the case when it comes to their white female counterparts.
Mishi Faruqee is the national field director for Youth First Initiative, a juvenile justice reform group. Faruqee says:
“The horrific incident is not about one bad officer, but also about larger policies that criminalize students in schools in South Carolina and across the country,” Mishi Faruqee, the national field director for juvenile justice reform group Youth First Initiative, told TakePart. “Under South Carolina’s Disturbing Schools law, even routine disciplinary problems are treated as crimes.”
Nationally, Black girls are suspended at six times the rate of the white female peers, according to last year’s study released by the African American Policy Forum. Take a look at this chart.
On October 28, 2014, school surveillance video captured another disturbing case involving police brutality within a Baltimore public middle school. The video captured now former Baltimore City Schools resource officer Lakisha Pulley assaulting three young black girls.
The incident started when Pulley, shown in the video, appears to call a young girl — identified only as Star — down from the bottom of a stairway. The video shows “Star” walking down the stairway past Pulley. At that point, Pulley begins to grab Star and force her against the wall. Star’s sister tries to intervene by reasoning with the officer, but the officer continues to assault Star.
Then one of Star’s female cousins can be seen rushing into the altercation trying to push the officer off of Star. At that point, Pulley releases Star, pulls out her baton, and gives chase to the third girl, later identified as Diamond. Diamond was shown retreating against the school lockers with her hands raised in a submissive position when Pulley begins to swing the baton at her head. Pulley strikes Diamond in the head at least two times causing a bloody gash on her head.
The officer also pepper sprays both Star and her sister; you can see Star writhing in agony as the pepper spray burns her eyes. After the assault, all three girls were rushed to the hospital and treated for their injuries.
The three girls were then arrested and charged with assault on an officer. The prosecutor dropped the charges after seeing the video, but the three girls were still suspended by the school district. In September, Pulley plead guilty to assault. Here’s the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0mR5QyEYaU
Many adults would justify the officer’s conduct, claiming that the girls were behaving like “hood rats” and deserved what they received. This view is shared by many Americans across racial lines when judging the actions of young black females.
Last year a New York Times article examined data from the Office of Civil Rights for better insight into how race and gender play a role in school discipline. Tanzina Vega reported shocking results from the data. Vega said:
“Researchers say that within minority groups, darker-skinned girls are disciplined more harshly than light-skinned ones,”
Vega reported the story of a 12-year-old black girl in Georgia who was accused of criminal trespassing after writing graffiti in a school bathroom. The black girl’s white friend was equally involved, however, she faced no criminal charges and her parents only had to pay a $100 restitution fine.
This Obama administration addressed the need to end the school to prison pipeline. Former Attorney General Eric Holder said this:
“A routine school disciplinary infraction should land a student in the principal’s office, not in a police precinct.”
In a letter to school districts last year, the Justice and Education departments said:
“In our investigations, we have found cases where African-American students were disciplined more harshly and more frequently because of their race than similarly situated white students,” the Justice and Education departments said in a letter to school districts. “In short, racial discrimination in school discipline is a real problem.”
