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Appearing on Fox4, a former McKinney police officer blasted the conduct of Officer Eric Casebolt, who threw an unarmed teenage girl to the ground, before saying local police authorities need to nip their race problem in the bud before it grows.
According to former officer Pete Schulte, Casebolt was over the line when he roughly pulled 15-year-old Dajerria Becton to the ground, saying, “I don’t care what she was yelling at that officer. Anything would not have justified throwing her to the ground and pushing her down and throwing her face into the concrete like he did.”
Commenting on Casebolt drawing his service weapon as spectators came to help the screaming girl, Schulte called it “crazy,” before noting that one of the fellow officers who came to Casebolt’s aid grabbed his arm as if pulling the weapon down.
Schulte, who is now an attorney, had advice to the McKinney Police Department, saying they needed to get the fallout from the viral video “under control,” due to the racial implications.
“There is an indication based on watching the video that the white people who were around the officers weren’t talked to, they weren’t pushed away, they weren’t told to get on the ground, they weren’t put in handcuffs. The only individuals McKinney police were doing that to were those that were African-American,” he said.
“McKinney police have got to get this under control before tomorrow,” he stated “At this point in America, in policing, there’s too much out there right now with Ferguson. They got to get out there in front of this and make sure that citizens, even outside of the city of McKinney, understand that they’re going to do the right thing and take corrective action and that this was not racially motivated.”
A video uploaded to YouTube on Saturday shows predominantly white cops detaining, handcuffing and, at one point, physically holding down black teenagers at a neighborhood pool. At one point, an unidentified white officer grabs a black teenage girl in a bikini by the hair and wrestles her to the ground. When other black teenagers try to intervene, that cop draws his weapon and briefly chases after two black young men. After these two African American young men flee, the cop returns to the girl in the bikini, forcing her face into the ground and then sitting on her in an apparent effort to prevent her from standing up.
This cop may face disciplinary charges. A statement issued by the McKinney, Texas Police Department says that “McKinney Police later learned of a video that was taken at the scene by an unknown party. This video has raised concerns that are being investigated by the McKinney Police Department. At this time, one of the responding officers has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of this investigation.”
The statement also claims that police responded to a “disturbance at the Craig Ranch North Community Pool” regarding “multiple juveniles at the location, who do not live in the area or have permission to be there, refusing to leave,” and that “Police received several additional calls related to this incident advising that juveniles were now actively fighting.”
It’s unclear whether some or all of the teens were actually at the pool without permission, but it appears likely that they believed that they were attending a pool party that was open to the public. Zahid Arab, a reporter for a local Fox affiliate, reported that a party at the local pool was advertised on social media.
The police department’s claim that “juveniles were now actively fighting” may also be literally true, but subsequent reporting suggests that white adults who lived in the neighborhood bear the lion’s share of the blame for this fighting. According to teens interviewed by BuzzFeed News, “the police were called after a fight broke out between adults and youths at the pool after the adults made racist comments telling the black children to leave the area and return to ‘Section 8 public housing.’” One white teen added that “when she and her friends objected to the racist comments about public housing an adult woman then became violent.”
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The police’s brutal treatment of black teens attending a pool party in McKinney, Texas has sparked a nationwide outrage. The video shows Officer Eric Casebolt grabbing 15-year-old Dajerria Becton, unarmed and wearing a bikini, by the hair and wrestling her to the ground. The seven-minute clip, posted Saturday, has already been viewed over 1 million times on YouTube and the incident was the number one trending topic in the United States on Twitter for much of Sunday.
But a reporter for Fox4 in Dallas, Zahid Arab, interviewed local homeowners who witnessed the incident and defended the officers’ conduct. These homeowners, according to Arab, say they believe the “officers’ safety was at risk.”
One of these homeowners appeared on camera, but allowed only her hands to be filmed. “I feel absolutely horrible for the police and what’s going on… they were completely outnumbered and they were just doing the right thing when these kids were fleeing and using profanity and threatening security guards,” she said.
Officer Eric Casebolt:
Officer Eric Casebolt was identified Sunday afternoon as the McKinney Police Department employee who was suspended after appearing in a viral video showing him roughly arresting teenagers at a Texas pool party, KDFW-TV reporter Zahid Arab reported.
Sources confirm:McKinney Patrol Supervisor Cpl. Eric Casebolt placed on admin leave following conduct at pool partypic.twitter.com/JaJMFWR5Ef
Casebolt was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into this incident. According to a LinkdIn profile in his name, Casebolt has worked as a police officer in McKinney since August 2005. He was named Officer of the Year in 2008, and his duties included neighborhood patrol, community policing and crime prevention.
