Resource officer resigns after rough restraint of ‘disruptive’ 11-year-old female student
FARMINGTON, N.M. (WISH) — A school resource officer has resigned following an internal investigation of his handling of a “disruptive” 11-year-old girl.
KOAT reports that lapel video shows 11-year veteran Zach Christensen aggressively take the girl down at Mesa View Middle School on Aug. 27.
The moment that Christensen felt the girl assaulted principal was also caught on the video.
School administrators had previously spent 45 minutes trying to get the girl to sit down and talk.
After Christensen took the girl down, administrators tried to intervene. The girl can be heard crying in the video.
“Officer Christensen, she is not a threat to yourself or others at this moment,” one of them is heard saying on the video.
The chief of the Farmington Police Department says the department will be reviewing policies.
“Our officers have training to kind of calm things down and settle things down and move into the facts. And instead we were the ones, really that ratcheted things up,” said Chief Steve Hebbe. “We are not pledging that we are going to be a perfect department, but we are going to be a department that reacts when we make mistakes, that owns those mistakes.”
New Mexico State Police has taken a look at the video and is not recommending charges against Christensen. The case now goes to the San Juan District Attorney’s Office.
Information from CNN Newsource was used in this report.