William Miller tried to pull out of the school parking lot after dropping off a friend at school. Miller had an orthodontist appointment but the school resource officer would not let him leave campus.
Miller told both the officer and a school discipline assistant, Cindy Bond, “he had an excused absence and would return later in the day with a note. After arguing for several minutes, he tried to pull his gray Ford F-150 around the golf cart to leave.”
“You’re going to get shot, you come another f—— foot closer to me,” the deputy said. “You run into me, you’ll get f—— shot.”
The teenager’s mother, Nedra Miller, “obtained bodycam footage of the December incident from the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office and posted it to Facebook.” Although the video clearly shows the officer using profanity , it doesn’t show Miller using profanity. It also doesn’t show Miller calling the white school discipline assistant, Cindy Bond, the “N” word like she claimed and suspended him for doing.
“I didn’t say that,” the teen said. “You’re being, like, hella racist by saying that.”
-William Miller
Not only did the school suspend Miller from Dec. 17 until Jan. 9, they later expelled him and sent him to “Harry Schwettman Education Center, which, according to the school’s website, is a ‘voluntary educational program the district provides for students who have violated School Board policy, been recommended for expulsion or have a behavior pattern which has not been improved by a continuum of positive behavior and academic intervention strategies.’
Ms. Miller stated that all three parties acted childish but holds the resource officer responsible for escalating the incident by threatening to shoot her son.
“All three were acting like children and all three are wrong. But the cop more so. He’s just flat out not okay to be around children. I was shocked that an officer of the law working with children would speak to my son that way.”
-Nedra Miller
Despite the dire consequences for William, the two adults involved in the interaction have faced few repercussions. The school district told the Times it is not investigating the incident. The sheriff’s office opened an internal review to determine whether the deputy, who has not been named, violated any policies. However, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office told the newspaper the deputy has not been suspended and continues to work at the high school.
