https://www.washingtonpost.com/educ...-old-girl-he-accused-being-disruptive-school/Video shows police officer tackling an 11-year-old girl he accused of being ‘disruptive’ at school
The veteran police officer had already pushed the sixth-grader against a brick wall and shoved her to the ground when he shouted at her to “stop resisting.”
Zachary Christensen, an officer in Farmington, N.M., had the 11-year-old pinned to the pavement. Clad in a pink sweater, she was crying as the officer at her middle school tried to wrestle her into handcuffs.
“I’m not resisting,” she told him. “Get off of me — you’re hurting me.”
At one point, a school administrator asked Christensen to let the student stand up, but he refused.
“Officer Christensen, she is not a threat to yourself or others at this moment,” the school official said. “You are not going to use excessive force to get this done.”
Christensen responded that she was indeed a threat and continued to press his forearm into the back of her neck.
“We’re not excessive,” he said.
The scene, which unfolded Aug. 27 at Mesa View Middle School in northern New Mexico, was captured on video and spawned a legal complaint and a string of investigations. It forced Christensen’s resignation and prompted both the school and police department to issue public apologies and promises of reform.
According to the 77-minute body-camera footage, released by the police department, Christensen tackled the student after he and administrators said they tried for several days to get her to behave at school. In the video, Christensen can be heard recounting the complaints against her: disrupting class, standing up on the bus and taking too much milk at the cafeteria.
Christensen later accused the student, who has not been publicly identified, of assaulting him and other school officials — allegations an internal affairs investigation found to be false.
Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe called the incident a failure.
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If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail