A disturbing video of a 12-year-old girl, Janissa Valdez, being body slammed by a Texas school police officer was released on the internet. This shocking video spread rapidly through the internet causing investigations to ignite. The officer, named as Joshua Kehm, is currently on administrative leave until the investigation comes to a conclusion.
I feel that people are not thinking about what could have caused the officer’s reaction. The video only shows the moment he tried to restrain the girl, then proceeded to body slam her. Body slamming a twelve year old girl was certainly not the way to respond compared to a less violent method, but no one can see what happened before the video started recording.
Witnesses said that Janissa was attempting to fight with another girl in school while her statement contradicted this. If this wasn’t what was taking place, why would she have resisted the officer trying to restrain her? This whole situation was set off because of people not reacting appropriately towards each other.
If children, or people in general, wouldn’t disrespect each other, half of these violent occurrences wouldn’t have happened. As a younger generation, children are expected to show respect and I don’t believe any was shown in this case. With this stated, elders are not exempt from treating others with respect as well. So many seem to react irrationally in these situations and it is because of how those in society treat one another. Respect needs to be shown and the violence needs to stop.
— Shelby Purtee, Alger
