Did police use excessive force to restrain high school students?

not at all. looks like the officer separated, subdued, & returned the immediate space to a controlled environment in about 5 seconds preserving the safety of all the students and making sure a broader larger scale fight did not erupt (something that often does in highschool fights). the officer should get a medal, be rewarded and this should be a training film. you can't make valuations with hindsight, in slow motion, or consider sexes. high school fights can, and are often crazy, with both sexes, and unpredictable ( knives, guns, etc. ). had the officer used a device like a stun gun or billy club i might think otherwise. if my child got into a highschool fight I would have no problem with a cop throwing my child to the ground, and dragging my child on the ground, if it meant in seconds the copy secured my child from being in an unpredictable physical conflict with another fighter. we don't live in a perfect or predictable world. no billy club, no stun gun? no problem.

Not at all!!! It looked like he got tired of being thrown around and figured it would be more productive to do some throwing. LOL

If it were left up to me I would have gone with the story on the passing of Rudy Ray Moore than this one. His "party records" used to make me and the old school crowd roll all over the floor."Way down in the jungle deep, the monkey swang high in the tree by it's feet. Remembering the beating he took in the past, he had to find someone to kick the lion's ass". He was the "godfather" to todays modern day rappers. I wonder what ever happened to Lady Reed?

I know that my comment is going to cause some controversy, but to me the focus should be more on why are these females fighting in school as oppose to worrying about the amount of force used by the police officer to subdue them. There is too much of this type of stuff (violence) happening daily at schools and it makes it real difficult for students to concentrate and learn what is needed in order for them to be successful in life. Parents, not just the schools, need to be more involved in their kids lives and teach them that there are better ways of solving conflicts and disputes than initially fighting.

I don't believe that anyone is contesting that officer brotemarkle was in the right when he put an end to the fight. However, what the people ARE contesting is the fact that he did have the need or the right to use such barbarianistic tactics to do so.he could have just easily not knocked down Mrs. Herndon the principal, thrown the girl and not bother to follow up on the throw by cuffubg her then, picking up the other girl after she was already floored and throwing her again to the ground. In short he should most definetely not get a medal, but shold be stripped of his title as law enforcment officer and be fined a substantial amount of money to the young woman that sustained injury during his tirade.

I am a student at Hickman High School along with James, this is our senior year and we have noticed the transformation of brutality at this school.. My junior year a fight broke out and many students were stunned by the officers who broke the fight apart, including MARK BROTEMARKLE. He is a very good officer, seeing as how he does do his job, does enforce school rules, break up fights, bust students with drugs, and solve many conflicts between students; However with this fight it is completely different, the tactics in which he used to subdue the fighters was unacceptable, Diamond (the girl who tried to break the fight apart) was thrown to the ground, cuffed, and did recieve some damage to her person. Brotemarkle rides a bike with a plastic pig on the handlebars around the school during lunch and with harrass students, he has threatened many students and a petition by parents that already has 40 signitures on it aimed towards not allowing him to return to the school has been very helpful. He did his job, but he should have exercised some restraint..

Officers of any kind should not be in schools. We are criminalizing our students instead of teaching them. Let the deans handle fights like they used to.