Police officer who slammed Wake County, NC, student to the ground placed on leave

A Rolesville police officer has been placed on administrative leave after a video was posted Tuesday on Twitter showing him slamming a female student to the floor.

The nine-second video shows Officer Ruben De Los Santos lifting the student into the air and dropping her to the floor before leading her away from a crowd of students at Rolesville High School. De Los Santos, the school resource officer assigned to the high school, is on paid administrative leave, said Rolesville Mayor Frank Eagles.

Eagles said Police Chief Bobby Langston will issue a statement during the Rolesville Board of Commissioners meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday after discussing the matter with the mayor and board in closed session.

Some Rolesville High School students and others in the community posted on Twitter demanding to know what happened.

Wake County school officials said they’re investigating the situation. It was not immediately clear when the incident occurred.

On Tuesday afternoon, school officials announced that a message would be sent to Rolesville High School families.

“The video does raise questions,” said Lisa Luten, a Wake County schools spokeswoman. “We are working with the Rolesville Police Department to discover what happened.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina said Tuesday it is also investigating.

“We’re very disturbed by what we saw in the video,” said Irena Como, staff attorney for the group. “This kind of force, especially with kids in schools, is never justified.”

Langston said he is reviewing the case and will interview staff. Eagles said he also planned to review the Twitter video. He said there is body-camera footage because the Rolesville Police Department announced in August that all officers would be issued a body camera.

Details about the altercation were not immediately provided by authorities. But a second longer video circulated Tuesday on social media shows a fight involving two other girls before the student was slammed to the ground.

Ahunna Apkuda, a Rolesville High student whose tweet about the shorter video has gone viral, wrote online that the student was trying to defend her sister who was fighting with another girl.

“Then the cop came outta nowhere,” Apukda tweeted.

Apkuda tweeted that the student has a few minor injuries “but nothing extremely serious.”

Tanya Pearson, the parent of a sophomore at Rolesville High, said she was “shocked and disgusted” by the incident.

Pearson said she first learned about the situation when her daughter texted her about it. She said she had not heard from school administrators.

“As a concerned parent, a head’s up would have been nice, or some type of call,” she said.

Other videos showing confrontations between police officers and students in schools have generated national attention.

A 2015 video of a South Carolina sheriff’s deputy tossing a student from her desk went viral, resulting in the officer being fired.

This story was originally published January 3, 2017 at 7:10 PM with the headline "Police officer who slammed Wake County, NC, student to the ground placed on leave."