California School Resource Officer Filmed Body-Slamming Teen Girl

Community members are outraged after a video surfaced showing a student at a Los Angeles-area high school being body-slammed by a school resource officer.

The teenage girl was thrown to the ground by an officer from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department around two weeks ago at Lancaster High School, ABC 7 reports. The footage shows the officer pinning her to the ground as he attempts to restrain her. The officer subsequently detained the girl and took her out of  the school.

“What we have heard from the sheriff’s department is that my client was a ‘threat.’ What was the ‘threat’? We haven’t been told specifically,” civil rights attorney Lisa Bloom said at a news conference outside the school on Wednesday. The girl’s mother, as well as students and activists, gathered with Bloom.

The attorney explained that her client says she walked up to the school resource officer to ask him why he was looking at her in a particular way and if everything was fine. The situation escalated, with sheriff’s officials saying the girl also used offensive language.