The black, teenage girl slammed to the ground by a white Texas police officer near a pool party on Friday, said that the cop should be punished for his actions.
“Him getting fired is not enough,” said Dajerria Becton, who Fox 4 News in Dallas-Fort Worth identified as the girl thrown to the ground by the officer.
A video uploaded to YouTube shows the cop, identified by Fox 4 News as police corporal Eric Casebolt, slamming Becton to the ground while grabbing her arm. He then drew his gun and chased other individuals who approached him. He then returned to Becton, and forced her face down into the grass, placed both of his knees on her back, and handcuffed her, the video shows.
Becton told Fox 4 News that Casebolt had asked her to keep walking and that she followed his command.
“And then I’m guessing he thought we were saying rude stuff to him,” Becton told Fox 4 News.
“He grabbed me, and he twisted my arm on the back of my back and he shoved me in the grass. He started pulling the back of my braids,” Becton said. “I was telling him, ‘Can you get off me,’ because my back was hurting really bad.”
Fox 4 News said that Becton is 15 years old, however McKinney police said that the officer temporarily detained a 14-year-old girl.
Casebolt was placed on administrative leave after the McKinney Police Department reviewed the video of the incident.
“This video has raised concerns that are being investigated by the McKinney Police Department,” the department said in a statement posted on Facebook.
“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,” the statement reads. “First responding officers encountered a large crowd that refused to comply with police commands.”
The National Bar Association, the nation’s largest organization of black attorneys and judges, has called for the McKinney police to fire Casebolt.
“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 group said in a statement.
Agreed, and that probably won’t happen either.
I assume that Officer Casebolt is using his free time during his administrative leave to set up his GoFundMe account.
So, I’m curious, what else do you think should happen to the officer?
She’s a she, a minor, and black. The cop must have thought that if he could pick on anybody with impunity, she’d be it. .
The notion that every single mistake that a person makes should end up with them fired is repulsive. This guy might have made a mistake, maybe not. The internal investigation should determine the truth, or something close to it. But, regardless, it is insane that the call “fire the SOB!” is the immediate response to every small mistake. Why not call for 10 hours of training or something appropriate? No one was injured or hurt in this melee.