The family of a girl in Florida is demanding that a school resource officer who killed their 16-year-old daughter be fired because of his actions, according to NBC News.
Earlier in the week, footage of an incident between Deputy Ethan Fournier and 16-year-old Taylor Bracey went viral and showed Fournier’s bodybuilding Bracey on the floor outside Liberty High School in Osceola County, Fla.
Bracey’s head slammed off the floor during the encounter.
Bracey se ma tell NBC that her daughter has had headaches, blurred vision and memory loss since the incident. “(We are) just angry and want justice to be done,” her mother, Jamesha Bracey, said. Bracey told her mother she was unconscious, and her mother said the school did not even want to tell her what had happened.
“The person who should protect her is the person who made her cruel,” said prominent civil rights lawyer Ben Crump. “This is a problem especially in the African-American community, because we often see them using this excessive use of force with our children.”
Crump, who represented the families of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, recently took up the case of Bracey.
Sheriff Marcos Lopez claims that the girl was not injured during a press conference during the meeting. “In my understanding, it was an interruption of a school function,” Lopez said. ‘The student did not comply with legal instructions. She followed another student. ‘
Crump says Lopez’s description of the events is incorrect and that a physical battle never took place. “There was an oral exchange. “Taylor never touched anyone and then this police officer does what we see in the video,” Crump said.
David Bigney, the lawyer for the officer, said that “unfortunately the situation sometimes rises to the level where violence is justified and necessary” and that videos that appear on the internet never tell the full story.
Fournier is on paid leave because the investigation was handed over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
The Hill reached out to Crump’s office for comment.