Culture

Police Response to School Water Balloon Fight: Violence and Arrests

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Count the overwrought responses to this incident. Enloe High School in Raleigh, N.C., called police out due to what appears to be a water balloon fight (overwrought response number one). Police arrested seven of the students (overwrought response number two) and threw a teen apparently not involved at all to the ground, necessitating medical treatment (overwrought response number three).

WRAL television reports:

The mother of an Enloe High School student has filed a complaint with the Raleigh Police Department after an officer threw her son to the ground Thursday as police responded to a water balloon battle at the school.

Seven students and a parent were arrested.

Sophomore Jahbriel Morris wasn't among those charged, but he had to be treated at WakeMed for a cut above his eyebrow, a bruised shoulder, a scraped knee and a sore neck and back.

Morris, 15, said he was injured when a police officer grabbed him outside the school, knocked him down and drove his head into the ground at least twice.

"How he was taken down was the most disturbing because they took him down by his neck and slammed him," Kevin Hines, a parent who witnessed the incident as he was picking up his children after school, said Friday.

Hines went to complain to the principal about the excessive force he witnessed. He was arrested for trespassing (overwrought response number four).

(Hat tip to Swarley for the lead)

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