The National Bar Association, the nation’s largest organization of black attorneys and judges, has called for the firing of a white Texas police officer who drew his gun and slammed a black teenaged girl to the ground while responding to a complaint at a pool party.
A seven-minute video shows the officer, who has been identified as McKinney police corporal Eric Casebolt, grab a teenage girl by the arm and slam her to the ground. When two people approached Casebolt, he drew his gun to chase them away. He then forced the girl face down onto the grass, placed his knees on her back and handcuffed her, the video shows. She was detained temporarily before being released, according to police.
The McKinney Police Department placed Casebolt on administrative leave and launched an investigation into his actions after reviewing the video published on YouTube on Saturday. The police said that Casebolt and two other officers responded to “a disturbance involving multiple juveniles at the location, who do not live in the area or have permission to be there, refusing to leave.” Nine additional officers later responded to the call.
“McKinney Police received several additional calls related to this incident advising that juveniles were now actively fighting,” police said in a statement.
In a statement released on Monday, the National Bar Associated accused Casebolt of racial bias.
“The National Bar Association is demanding a full investigation, and that based on the seven minute YouTube video standing alone is grounds to terminate Officer 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 statement reads.
The bar association said that Casebolt was “engaging in aggressive, unprofessional, out of control behavior towards these African American teenagers.”
“Officer Casebolt used profanity and aggressively threw a 14 year old girl in a bikini bathing suit to the ground, face-down,” the statement reads. “The officer at one point even pulls out his firearm on brandishes it at two male teens. When a small African American boy asks the officer for assistance locating his bag and attempts to explain that he was not involved the officer states that is not his problem and is extremely aggressive, rude, and dismissive.”
While I agree that the officer should be fired, I would think that the National Bar Association would be aware of a little thing called due process. The reason there is a protocol for terminations in situations like this is to prevent a violation of labor contracts.
Agreed. If the Police Department fires this moron outside of the parameters of his collective bargaining agreement, the officer will appeal the firing and he will be back on the job within 30 days.
You’d think lawyers would understand due process rights.
Well, the good news is that this is Texas. Do they allow even cops to unionize in Texas?
But, yes, he’s a government employee, so the out of control pervy little goon can’t be fired without notice and opportunity to be heard.
It’s interesting to watch the other cops. All of them seem to have been keeping an eye on him without trying to calm him down–pretty much exactly how you’d expect them to treat a guy they know to be a 'roid raging out of control asshole, can’t talk him down, but you have to keep him from killing unarmed kids in front of a camera. And then they placate him by running after the kids he pulled the gun on because, again, placate, don’t confront.
Some of the comments I saw on this story yesterday, furthered my conviction that if there was video showing a white cop walking up behind a black person, shooting him and then field dressing the corpse like a deer, there’d still be barely closeted racist authoritarians defending him on Facebook and blaming the victim. They would invent an elaborate story about what must have happened before the video started and then justify the slaughter based on it, utterly oblivious that taking their invented story as true, it still didn’t justify what was on the film.
He so casually pulled his weapon on teenagers in swimsuits…
Well those towels could have been loaded!