Student throws volleyball at officer on bike, and the whole world cringes

- A viral video in which May River High School’s resource officer was knocked off her bicycle by a volleyball thrown by a student has been judged a student prank gone wrong, Bluffton police said Friday.

Lindsey Gibson suffered scrapes on her hands when the volleyball hit her front tire and sent her sprawling onto the school’s running track during a class demonstration, police spokeswoman Joy Nelson said Friday. The officer declined to file a report, saying there was no malicious intent.

“The student wasn’t trying to make the SRO crash,” Nelson said. “It really comes down to horseplay that didn’t go exactly right.”

The incident was captured on video and has spread through the internet, from a local community page where commenters are expressing outrage at the student’s actions, to a Twitter account for worldstarhiphop.com, which has 1.8 million followers. On that site alone, the video has been retweeted more than 21,000 times since being posted Thursday morning.

Federal privacy laws prevent school officials from discussing any possible disciplinary action toward an individual student, district spokesman Jim Foster said. Each offense is reviewed on a case-by-case basis, he noted.

According to the Beaufort County School District’s code of student conduct, assaulting school personnel can bring up to a 10-day suspension and recommendation for expulsion. Multiple commenters on the sites where the video has been shared say the student received a two-day suspension, but that information cannot be verified.

The incident took place Jan. 6 as Gibson was assisting a criminal justice class, Nelson said.

The video shows the officer coming around a turn on the running track when a student, whose identity was edited out, throws a volleyball into the bicycle.

The ball strikes the front tire squarely, causing the officer to lose control.

“Luckily the track is a soft track,” Nelson said. “She’s more embarrassed by the situation than anything else.”

Gibson has been a student resource officer for several years, Nelson said, transferring to May River from McCracken Middle School when the new high school opened this fall.

This story was originally published January 13, 2017 at 3:50 PM with the headline "Student throws volleyball at officer on bike, and the whole world cringes."