Last week, a fight at Nimitz High School in Irving left two Irving Police Department (PD) police officers’ use of force under investigation.
Most of the fight on September 21 was caught on camera and posted online, catching the attention of students’ parents at the school, ABC News reported.
The brawl took place inside a lunchroom at the high school. Shortly after the camera started rolling, two Irving police officers rushed in to try and wrangle those fighting.
One of those officers picked a student up (Jason Montes, according to ABC News) and allegedly slammed him onto a cart or bar and then shoved him to the ground when he stood up.
Jason’s father, Mark Montes, was unhappy with how his son was treated. He said Jason became a part of the ruckus when he noticed his cousin was fighting.
Going to the campus the next day, Montes asked to speak to the supervisor in charge of the officer. Instead, he was able to speak to the officer himself.
He asked the officer in question why he had tossed his son around instead of de-escalating the situation.
The man did not respond to questioning the way Montes thought he would. “He stood up and bulged up to me and said, ‘Yeah, I did it. What?’ with no remorse,” Montes told ABC News.
Montes said the officer’s lack of remorse and ham-handedness were uncalled for. He feels his son could have been seriously injured.
Confronting the officer, the father said, “You have no right to do what you did to my son and choke slam him and could’ve broken his back on that bar.”
Getting no apology from the officer, Montes continued, “He couldn’t sleep last night. He was having headaches all last night. We took him to the emergency room.”
When asked how his son was doing, the father answered, “They didn’t find anything besides all the cuts and bruises he already had.”
Irving PD reassigned one of the officers as they conduct an internal investigation. They said officers did use force to detain students in breaking up that fight but didn’t specify what kind of force was used.
The Dallas Express reached out to Irving Independent School District (ISD) and the Irving police for comment, but none was submitted at the time of press.
