This is the law that justified that violent South Carolina arrest

South Carolina statehouse
(Image credit: Davis Turner/Getty Images)

The school police officer caught on camera violently arresting a student in her classroom in South Carolina has been fired — but the law that justified his decision to make an arrest is still on the books.

The charge the officer had in mind was "disturbing a school," a misdemeanor offense with fines up to $1,000 and penalties of as much as three months in jail:

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.