Student body-slams principal in Sacramento high school

The hyphen in the title is not a typo. If it were, the story would have an upbeat tone. After all, a school’s student body speaking out against a principal who was out of line might be viewed as democracy in action. This particular case, however, demonstrates violence in action.

Footage of the melee originally posted on YouTube has since been deleted for allegedly violating the site’s terms of service. No matter, a clip from Fox affiliate KCRA in Sacramento still contains a visual record of the incident, which — warning — is disturbing to watch.

In it the principal of Florin High School, Don Ross, is lifted up by a student and heaved to the ground during a vicious brawl he was trying to break up.

A junior at the high school, Dezhon Jackson, described the incident to ABC affiliate KCRA thus:

I see the principal get flipped … I just see a whole lot of ruckus. A lot of people were just crowding over getting on tables and yelling to fight – encouraging it.

The incident, Joel Pollak of Breitbart observes, “had a racial tinge – albeit reversed from that of recent cases, such as the incident at Spring Valley High School in South Carolina, where a white officer slammed a black female student to the ground before arresting her.” The principal in the Sacramento scuffle, Pollak goes on to note is white, his aggressor black.

As for that earlier incident, a cell phone video recording that has gone viral shows a sheriff’s deputy hauling a teenage girl out of her seat and hurling her across the room. The deputy, who has been suspended without pay, insists the student was disruptive and non-cooperative, and left him with no choice. His boss, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, agrees, telling CNN:

We must not lose sight that this whole incident started by this student. She is responsible for initiating this action. Some responsibility falls on her.

Even though there is nothing about the officer’s history to suggest that race was a factor in his actions (he is white and the student is black), the Justice Department has inserted itself into the case and is exploring whether the teen’s civil rights were violated. But if conclusions are to be jumped to in this case, then shouldn’t the DOJ initiate an investigation into whether the civil rights of the principal in Sacramento were violated?

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Howard Portnoy

Howard Portnoy

Howard Portnoy has written for The Blaze, HotAir, NewsBusters, Weasel Zippers, Conservative Firing Line, RedCounty, and New York’s Daily News. He has one published novel, Hot Rain, (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), and has been a guest on Radio Vice Online with Jim Vicevich, The Alana Burke Show, Smart Life with Dr. Gina, and The George Espenlaub Show.

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