VIDEO HORROR: Student choked by brutal school resource officer for stealing candy bar
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Parents of a Covington, Georgia teen are upset and are preparing for a legal fight after their son was slammed to the floor of his school by a resource officer who roughed him up over stealing a candy bar from an open vending machine.
—Video of President Barack Obama playing Santa at children’s hospital is all the holiday cheer—
A’sa Glenn, 14, and a group of other students were approached by resource officers after they reportedly grabbed snacks from an opening vending machine without paying last week at Alcovy High School in Covington.
“One of them choked me and slammed me into the brick wall,” Glenn told WSBTV, “and then on the ground, dragged me around.”
“I didn’t know why he was doing it over an eighty-five cent Snicker bar.”
“My knees are scraped, my ribs bruised,” Glenn said.
Glenn suffered bruises on his neck that he says was caused by the officer’s tight grip on his neck.
Harold Spence, the family’s attorney said the resource officer had other methods he could have employed other than excessive force.
“It was clearly an excessive use of force where a minor incident was made into a violent and unnecessary encounter,” Spence said.
“My heart dropped,” Glenn’s mom Latoya said. “I was like my son is getting choked, I watched him getting slammed and his head hit the wall.”
LaToya said he son was not resisting arrest. The day after the incident she spoke with the resource officer to ask him about the alleged use of excessive force.
“I sat down with the officer that slammed him and he did apologize,” Latoya Glenn said.
Glenn apologized for his role too.
“I should apologize. That was uncalled for taking the Snickers bar out the vending machine, but they should apologize for what they did to me,” Glenn said.
The family plans to fight the charges against the 14-year-old. The resource officer has been reassigned pending an investigation.
Cops in school
After a video leaked showing two police officers roughing up a middle school student and slamming him to the ground at a Louisiana school, the cops were charged with misdemeanors.
Police Officer Anthony “Kip” Dupre was caught on video on Oct. 5 assaulting a 14-year-old student at Brusly Middle School, putting him in a headlock and slamming him to the ground. The Louisiana State Police started investigating the use of force by Dupre and a second officer.
Dupre contends that the student grabbed for his weapon as they fought. The leaked video tells a different story: the officer can be seen handing his holstered weapon to a school employee in the school’s administrative office before assaulting the unarmed student.
The video was sent to WAFB station by an anonymous source.
The officers resigned per the police chief’s request and were charged with misdemeanors.
A grand jury in West Baton Rouge Parish indicted former officer Dan Cipriano on simple battery, according to CBS affiliate WAFB-TV, and Kip Dupre is charged with malfeasance in office.
The student’s family believe the officers should face harsher charges after such a violent assault.
“They feel the DA’s office did an adequate job by bringing it quickly to the people but feel it was a slap on the wrist based on the tape and what they saw done to their grandson,” the student’s attorney, Kwame Asante, said.
The teen’s grandmother told CBS News that while the incident left her grandson with bruises on his face and a cut on his chin, she’s more concerned about the psychological impact.
