{"id":64652,"date":"2019-10-21T18:12:41","date_gmt":"2019-10-22T00:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-school-resource-officer-resigns-after-tussle-with-11-year-old-girl\/"},"modified":"2019-10-22T00:12:41","modified_gmt":"2019-10-22T00:12:41","slug":"farmington-school-resource-officer-resigns-after-tussle-with-11-year-old-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/farmington-school-resource-officer-resigns-after-tussle-with-11-year-old-girl\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmington school resource officer resigns after tussle with 11-year-old girl"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=0ff6636f-405b-4b4e-9379-ace24a99636c&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1163\" alt=\"Zach Christensen, a school resource officer at Mesa View Middle School in Farmington, wrestles with an 11-year-old girl Aug. 27. Christensen resigned after officials reviewed video of the incident.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Zach Christensen, a school resource officer at Mesa View Middle School in Farmington, wrestles with an 11-year-old girl Aug. 27. Christensen resigned after officials reviewed video of the incident.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Courtesy of Farmington Police Department<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>A school resource officer with the Farmington Police Department resigned after using force on an 11-year-old girl at Mesa View Middle School, the department announced Sunday evening.<\/p>\n<p>The incident happened the morning of Aug. 27 when middle school officials asked Officer Zach Christensen to help with a student they said was being \u201cdisruptive,\u201d according to the department\u2019s official statement about the incident.<\/p>\n<p>An internal affairs investigation was opened Aug. 28, independent of a complaint filed by the mother of the student the same day, Farmington Police Department Chief Steve Hebbe told <em>The Durango Herald<\/em>. Officials showed the mother video footage of the incident captured by the officer\u2019s lapel camera, provided her a copy of the video and placed the officer on administrative leave, according to Farmington police officials.<\/p>\n<p>The police department has since release the video to the public.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yYWZyBu-7_Y\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Hebbe issued a written statement Sunday, saying, \u201cLike many of you, I was shocked and angry when I watched this video. We value our relationship with our community and will continue to work hard to maintain the public\u2019s confidence in our department.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Christensen said he believed the student had elbowed a school administrator and shoved a principal, according to the release. But when the officer reviewed his own lapel footage of the incident, he \u201csaw he had made some errors in what he believed had happened,\u201d the police chief said.<\/p>\n<p>The video shows the officer attempt to place the student in handcuffs, and when she resisted, the two ended up screaming until the student is ultimately wrestled to the ground despite repeatedly crying \u201cStop, get off of me\u201d and \u201cStop touching me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>School administrators tried to intervene multiple times and one protested the use of force.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1o_5-u3nfKA\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The department also referred the case to the New Mexico State Police at the end of August for a criminal investigation, but the State Police did not recommend criminal charges against Christensen, Hebbe said.<\/p>\n<p>Christensen submitted his resignation with the department on Sept. 24, which took effect Oct. 1.<\/p>\n<p>Although the student\u2019s mom initially did not want the incident to go public, the Farmington Police Department decided to release details of the report after involvement of the state police, Hebbe said.<\/p>\n<p>The Farmington Municipal School District issued a statement saying it would not discuss details of the incident, out of \u201crespect for student privacy, and to comply with student privacy laws.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But the administration\u2019s statement said it was \u201creviewing this incident with the intent of putting into place procedures and practices to prevent another instance like this. The safety of all students entrusted in our care is among our highest priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While FPD released footage of the incident onto its YouTube channel Sunday evening, the department pulled the clip Monday morning to further redact the audio to remove the student\u2019s personal information, said Nicole Brown, FPD\u2019s spokesperson. A newly redacted video was uploaded Monday afternoon showing an hourlong interaction.<\/p>\n<p>Hebbe said the department is reviewing its policies around use of force. \u201cIs there an age (of child) when we know we\u2019re not going to go hands-on unless there are extreme circumstances?\u201d he said. He said the department will continue to offer trainings and has shown the video to all of its officers to talk about where there were mistakes made.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we fall short of our expectations and standards, we hold ourselves accountable,\u201d Hebbe said.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:lweber@durangoherald.com\">lweber@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ffLL4--xOq8\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Farmington Police Department releases lapel footage of incident<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1167,799,28,51],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-64652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-exclude-homepage-video","tag-farmington","tag-headlines","tag-police"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64652"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=64652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}