Rolesville, N.C. — In video on Twitter posted Tuesday by a student at Rolesville High School, a Rolesville police officer is visible picking up a female student and slamming her to the floor.
The girl in the video is Jasmine Darwin, who said she was trying to break up a fight between her sister and another student when the officer came from behind and slammed her to the ground.
Darwin’s mother, Desiree Harrison, said she was called to the school about her other daughter, but had no clue what had happened to Darwin until after she got home. Harrison said she feels the officer’s actions were excessive.
“When I’m looking at this video, I’m like ‘oh my god, this cannot be happening to my child’ because I was just up at the school and they didn’t even tell me what happened to her,” Harrison said. “They were so busy trying to get rid of the one who was in a fight but didn’t even say something about the one that was not involved in anything.”
Harrison said she plans to take her daughter to the hospital Tuesday night to have her checked out.
According to Rolesville Mayor Frank Eagles, the officer seen on the video is Rolesville High School resource officer Ruben De Los Santos. Santos, who is a member of the Rolesville Police Department and has been a resource officer at the school for four years, has been placed on paid administrative leave.
Eagles said he believes the incident depicted in the video occurred early Tuesday morning, before the first bell rang to signal the start of classes.
After the video was posted to Twitter, students were quick to tag the Wake County Public School System and ask for a response.
Lisa Luten, a spokeswoman for the school system, said, “We are aware of the video. We are working with Rolesville Police Department to gather all of the details around this incident to ensure that we take the appropriate action.”
Eagles said body camera footage of the incident exists.
A special thank you to our friends at WRAL for helping out with this post.