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Moment Florida deputy threatens to SHOOT a student, 17, for trying to leave school to get to a dental appointment
Daily Mail
Mon February 10, 2020
Area: Tampa, St. Petersburg (Sarasota)
A 17-year-old high school student from Florida was leaving school to go to a dental appointment when a sheriff's deputy blocked his way and threatened to shoot him for truancy.
The incident took place at River Ridge High School in Pasco County a week before Christmas, but the student's mother, Nedra Miller, has only recently obtained the school resource officer's body camera video and shared it on Facebook.
It shows a tense confrontation between 17-year-old William Miller, sitting behind the wheel of a pickup truck and a Pasco County Sheriff's deputy serving as a school resource officer, while a school discipline assistant watches from a golf cart.
The three-minute, 55-second recording has been viewed more than 41,000 as of Monday morning.
On the morning of December 17, 2019, William had dropped off a friend at school who had missed the bus and was about to pull out of the school parking lot to get to an appointment with his orthodontist when he was stopped in his tracks by the cop and the school administrator, reported The Tampa Bay Times.
The teen reportedly informed the officer and the discipline assistant that he had an excused absence and would return later with a note, but they would not budge.
The body camera video begins mid-argument between the two adults and William, who tells them to 'get the hell out of my way.'
As he attempts to back up and drive around the golf car blocking the parking lot exist, the school resource officer issues a foul-mouthed warning: 'You're gonna get shot, you come another f***ing foot closer to me. You run into me, you'll get f***ing shot. This is my campus, brother.'
The cop tells William that he is truant because he is trying to leave campus during classes, but the student insist that he is not truant because he has a valid excuse.
'Are you holding me against my will right now?' the teen asks.
'You're a juvenile,' the officer reminds the 17-year-old, who remains defiant and insists that he is old enough to leave.
The trio continue bickering in this fashion for a couple more minutes, with William telling the adults that he has a valid reason to leave but declines to state it, and the school assistant challenging him to get a parent on the phone to explain the situation.
'But I don't have to,' the teen declares.
The school official, Cindy Bond, tells William he will be suspended for the rest of the week for, among other things, truancy, hurling profanities and calling the woman, who is white, the 'n-word.'
William, who is also white, bristles at her accusation and denies using the racial slur.
'I didn't say that,' he states. 'You're being, like, hella racist by saying that.'
William eventually concedes defeat, turns his pickup around and returns back to the parking lot, but yells at the officials that he still plans to leave.
'He cracks me up,' Bond tells the school resource officer with a laugh.
William's mother, Nedra Miller, said she had called her son's school in advance to explain his absence and claimed that he did not want to bother her at work as he attempted to leave.
The teen was suspended from December 17 to January 9, and was later expelled from school.
Miller admitted that her son acted immaturely, but she cast much of the blame for the escalation of the dispute on the adults, arguing that the officer is unfit to be around children.
The Pasco County Sheriff's Office has launched an internal review to determine whether the deputy violated any rules, but so far he has not been suspended and continues to work at the school.
The deputy has not been identified, but the school's website lists the resource officer as Stephen Titus.
'We can all see this could have been a disaster,' Miller wrote in comments on Facebook. 'Someone could have actually been hit or shot. No one in this situation is in the right.
'There are multiple things that need to be corrected and addressed to prevent something like this from ever happening again to any student. The only punishment allowed for leaving the school without permission is loosing [sic] your privileges to drive to school. So why the hell did someone threatening to "f***ing shoot" my son.'
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