The police officer seen in a video throwing a 14-year-old girl in a swimsuit to the ground and pointing his gun at other teenagers has resigned from the police force in McKinney, Texas.
Chief Greg Conley of the McKinney Police Department said during a news conference Tuesday that the officer, Eric Casebolt, had resigned while under investigation.
The corporal will keep his pension and benefits, the police chief said.
0 of 3
“Our policies, our training, our practice doesn’t support his actions,” Conley said. “He came into the call out of control, and as the video shows was out of control during the incident.”
The video was taken on a cellphone and posted to YouTube, where it set off another in a recent series of debates involving race and police tactics. The police said Casebolt and other officers were responding to a call about a fight and a disturbance at a community pool in Craig Ranch, a racially diverse subdivision north of Dallas.
Casebolt can be heard shouting profanities at the teenagers, and officers handcuffed several who had followed his orders to sit on the ground. He appeared to grab the girl and pin her to the ground after she did not heed his orders to leave.
One adult man was arrested on charges of interfering with the duties of a police officer and evading arrest.
Chief Conley said Tuesday that those charges had been dismissed. At the news conference, Mayor Brian Loughmiller said that officials recognised a need for better training for officers, but that there needed to be expectations for interactions with police.
Greg Willis, the district attorney for Collin County, said in a statement Tuesday that his office had received numerous inquiries about the case. “We share the public’s legitimate interest in a full and fair investigation of this matter,” he said. “We are currently awaiting the results of the McKinney Police Department’s investigation and ask for patience as their investigation continues.”
The seven-minute video, viewed more than 10 million times on YouTube as of Wednesday, shows officers responding to the incident, which police said started when scores of youths attended a party with a DJ at a community pool and refused requests to leave.
Civil rights leaders met McKinney officials on Monday and told reporters they saw the officer’s actions as being racially motivated. They also said they wanted a US justice department probe.
Casebolt, a 10-year veteran once named the department’s patrolman of the year, was questioned by authorities on Monday. He has not spoken publicly about the incident.
At the start of the video, one police officer cordially tells some of the crowd: “Don’t take off running as soon as cops get here.”
Dajerria Becton, the 15-year-old girl thrown to the ground by Casebolt, told broadcaster KDFW that the officer twisted her arm and grabbed her by the hair.
“Him getting fired isn’t enough,” she said.
Several people wrote on the McKinney police Facebook page that the youths antagonised police and that they should have obeyed when officers told them to stay put and keep quiet.
A few area residents told media that the case was about unruly teenagers and not about race.
McKinney has about 150,000 people, according to the US census bureau. Black Americans make up about 10.5 per cent of its population.
NYT