Overzealous Cop Screams Profanities, Uses Excessive Force, Pulls Out and Points Gun, and Unlawfully Handcuffs Black Children at 14-Year-Old's Pool Party in McKinney, Texas

UPDATE JUNE 9, 2015: The National Bar Association, a network of predominantly African-American attorneys, judges and law professors, called for Officer David Eric Casebolt's immediate firing. "It is insufficient to place him on paid administrative leave, when it is obviously clear that this officer was not enforcing the law, but instead was enforcing his will and power and showing explicit bias towards these African-American teenagers," the Washington, D.C.-based group said. "The girl is obviously in distress and not in any manner moving or attempting to get away from the officer. She posed no physical threat to the officer."

Resignation is the easy way out. We demand that #EricCasebolt be charged w/ Official Oppression #mckinneypoolparty pic.twitter.com/Og3Wj52eEl

— DallasforChange (@DallasforChange) June 9, 2015

UPDATE JUNE 9, 2015: Casebolt has resigned. Officer David Eric Casebolt's actions were "indefensible," though he was not pressured to quit, McKinney Police Chief Greg Conley said at a press conference after the officer submitted his resignation Tuesday, June 10th. Benét Embry, a black local radio personality who witnessed the Friday incident, said neighbors told him that a woman who lives in the community reserved the pool for a party. The homeowners' association limits the number of guests each homeowner may have at the pool to two. But about 130 people, mostly kids, showed up. At one point, several kids began jumping over the fence to get into the pool area and were causing a disturbance, Embry said, and a couple of fights broke out. "This was a teenage party that got out of hand," Embry said. Police said some of the young people did not live in the area and did not have permission to be at the pool.

Protesters listen during a rally against what demonstrators call police brutality in McKinney, Texas, June 8, 2015. Hundreds marched through the Dallas-area city of McKinney on Monday calling for the firing of police officer Eric Casebolt, seen in a video throwing a bikini-clad teenage girl to the ground and pointing his pistol at other youths at a pool party disturbance. (REUTERS/Mike Stone)

McKinney, Texas, police officer who pulled gun on unarmed teenagers at pool party placed on leave

Video of incident stirs outrage, prompts charges of racial bias 

Warning: The video above contains obscene language. Viewer discretion is advised.

June 7, 2015

Yahoo! News - A Texas police officer who drew his gun on unarmed teenagers while responding to a disturbance at a pool party and threw a 14-year-old girl in a bathing suit to the ground has been placed on administrative leave, officials said Sunday.

The incident occurred Friday night in McKinney, Texas, about 30 miles north of Dallas, when police were called to a private community pool where a large crowd had gathered.

In a video taken by a teenage bystander and posted to YouTube, the officer, who is white, can be seen shouting obscenities and ordering some black teens to lie on the ground while telling others to disperse. The officer is then seen grabbing the back of the girl's head, throwing her to the ground and pushing her face down, then pulling his gun on a pair of black teenagers who appeared to be coming to her aid..



"This video has raised concerns that are being investigated," the McKinney Police Department said in a statement.


According to police, a total of 12 officers responded to the call:

On June 5, 2015 at approximately 7:15 p.m., officers from the McKinney Police Department responded to a disturbance at the Craig Ranch North Community Pool. The initial call came in as a disturbance involving multiple juveniles at the location, who do not live in the area or have permission to be there, refusing to leave. McKinney Police received several additional calls related to this incident advising that juveniles were now actively fighting.

First responding officers encountered a large crowd that refused to comply with police commands. Nine additional units responded to the scene. Officers were eventually able to gain control of the situation.

Police said they later learned of the footage, which prompted the investigation.

The girl, who was not charged, was released to her parents, McKinney Police Chief Greg Conley said at a press conference Sunday afternoon.

The 15-year-old who shot the video told BuzzFeed that the party was an "end-of-school celebration" that some students had crashed.

“I think a bunch of white parents were angry that a bunch of black kids who don’t live in the neighborhood were in the pool,” the teen, who is white, told the website.

The video quickly sparked outrage on social media, as many drew comparisons to recent high-profile cases of police bias in Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore.

There was one arrest — of an adult male — for interfering with the duties of a police officer and evading arrest, Conley said. There were no reports of injuries.

“I am committed a complete and thorough investigation into this incident,” Conley said.

White Woman Used Racial Slurs, Slapped Her, Texas Pool Party Host Says

June 8, 2015

Think Progress - After a viral video of police brutalizing black teenagers in swimsuits in Texas sparked national outrage, a second video has surfaced of a party host detailing a violent encounter before the cops arrived at the scene.

According to 19-year-old community member Tatiana, who put together the event to celebrate the end of the school year, several white people at the pool hurled racial slurs at her friends, calling one a “black f-er” and talking about Section 8 public housing.

When 14-year-old friend Grace Stone stood up for the group, saying the comments were racist, the man and woman started berating her. Tatiana alleges she stepped in to tell the white couple that they shouldn’t verbally attack a young girl, at which point they told her to “go back to [her] Section 8 home.” One woman, identified as Kate, allegedly slapped Tatiana in the face, before attacking the teenager with the help of another woman.

Tatiana’s mother, who was also featured in the YouTube video, responded, “I’m just upset that we couldn’t have a peaceful event. [If] it was any issue that they truly had, they should’ve came to me, the adult that was here at the event…and not go to that extreme.”

Watch the video of Tatiana:



Brandon Brooks, a white teenager who filmed first video of the police encounter, explained to Buzzfeed News that many of the black kids had special passes to swim in the community pool, although some did jump the fence. “I think a bunch of white parents were angry that a bunch of black kids who don’t live in the neighborhood were in the pool,” he said. However, he maintains, many of the kids who were handcuffed and told to get on the ground were ‘innocent bystanders.’

Having seen the original video on YouTube, Tom Fuentes, a former assistant director for the FBI told CNN that the officer’s actions were unjustified, and that the main officer was “running around and escalating” the situation. “He’s out of control. He clearly has no self-discipline. He lost control of his temper. Nothing good can happen at that point. Thankfully he didn’t shoot somebody,” he concluded.

But local homeowners defended the officers’ actions, arguing the officers’ safety was threatened. “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,” an anonymous woman told Fox4. Notes thanking the officers were also hung on the pool fence. 

McKinney, Texas, and the Racial History of American Swimming Pools [Excerpt]

June 8, 2015

The Atlantic - On Friday, a large group of teens gathered for a pool party in the city of McKinney, Texas. Shortly thereafter, someone called the police. And by Sunday night, as footage of the police response spread across the internet, the McKinney Police Department announced it was placing Eric Casebolt, the patrol supervisor shown in the video, on administrative leave.

It is the latest in a string of incidents of police using apparently excessive force against African Americans that has captured public attention. And it took place at a communal pool—where, for more than a century, conflicts over race and class have often surfaced.

The video shows a foul-mouthed police corporal telling the young men he encounters to get down, and the young women to take off, although far more obscenely. When several seated young men appear to ask, politely, for permission to leave, he explodes at them: “Don’t make me fucking run around here with thirty pounds of goddamn gear in the sun because you want to screw around out here.” The corporal was white. The young people he detained were, almost without exception, black.

The video next shows him repeatedly cursing at a group of young women, telling them to move on. Then he wrestles one to the ground. As bystanders react in horror, and several rush toward the young woman as if to her assistance, he draws his sidearm. They flee. He returns to the teenager, wrestles her back down, forces her face into the ground, and places both knees on her back.

The McKinney police said, in a statement, that they were called to respond to the Craig Ranch North Community Pool for a report of  “a disturbance involving multiple juveniles at the location, who do not live in the area or have permission to be there, refusing to leave.” They added that additional calls reported fighting, and that when the crowd refused to comply with the first responding officers, nine additional units were deployed.

The mayor, Brian Loughmiller, described himself as “disturbed and concerned,” and the police chief vowed “a complete, and thorough, investigation.”


Like many flourishing American suburbs, McKinney has struggled with questions of equity and diversity. The city is among the fastest-growing in America, and its residents hail from a wide range of backgrounds. Formal, legal segregation is a thing of the past. Yet stark divides persist.

In 2009, McKinney was forced to settle a lawsuit alleging that it was blocking the development of affordable housing suitable for tenants with Section 8 vouchers in the more affluent western portion of the city. East of Highway 75, according to the lawsuit, McKinney is 49 percent white; to its west, McKinney is 86 percent white. The plaintiffs alleged that the city and its housing authority were “willing to negotiate for and provide low-income housing units in east McKinney, but not west McKinney, which amounts to illegal racial steering.”

All three of the city’s public pools lie to the east of Highway 75. Craig Ranch, where the pool party took place, lies well to its west. BuzzFeed reports that the fight broke out when an adult woman told the teens to go back to “Section 8 housing.”