What People Care About This Week: McKinney Pool Party Chaos

Last week video came out from a pool party in McKinney, Texas where a bunch of Black teens were being rounded up, handcuffed, and threatened with more force. There are a lot of people involved in this story which means that we'll never know the entire truth of it. If you have three teens you'll get five stories and once you involve police you just multiply that by two.

I watched the video and the first thing I thought was “This cop wants to fuck someone up!” When you see officer Eric Casebolt come barrel rolling into the shot you know from the start that he is not there to make peace. He's not there to calm everyone down and find out what's happening. He is excited that he gets to exert force. I'm a cop. You're not. Get wrecked. Well, turns out he got a little bit too turnt up and now he's resigned before the investigation into this while he was on leave was done.

Police Chief Greg Conley said “Our policies, our training, our practice, do not support his actions. He came into the call out of control, and as the video shows, was out of control during the incident. We are continuing looking into all the allegations that are being presented to us, and any part of a criminal investigation regarding anyone will take a matter of time for us to work through all those allegations and those people who have come forward to us to complain.” He also pointed out that out of a dozen cops, Casebolt was the only one that didn't do his job. “I had 12 officers on the scene, and 11 of them performed according to their training. They did an excellent job.”

Here comes the part I mentioned about the different versions of what caused this all to happen. Tatyana Rhodes was hosting the pool party where this took place. She says two White women told a bunch of Black teens that showed up to “go back to their Section 8 homes” with one of them slapping her in the face. Even with all of that happening to her she thinks the cops handled things badly. “He didn't have to use aggression. I'm happy that he's resigning. I feel that everyone in McKinney will feel better that he's resigning. It's the first step.”

Another resident who I have to point out is Black because this is the Race Game and we're playing it whether we want to admit it or not named Benet Embry says that race was not the reason this all started. It started because a bunch of uninvited teens showed up to a party and started jumping fences. There was only one security guard for the pool and he was overwhelmed and called police for backup. “I may or may not agree with everything that the police officer did, but I do believe he was trying to establish order.”

The girl that was shown in the video being restrained by Casebolt, Dajerria Becton, said that she listened when she was told to leave. “He told me to keep walking. And I kept walking, and then I'm guessing he thought we were saying rude stuff to him.” I've seen the video. Its not exactly true but he did single her out. “He grabbed me, twisted my arm on my back and shoved me in the grass and started pulling the back of my braids. I was telling him to get off me because my back was hurting bad.” She was released to her parents afterward.

Brandon Brooks is the 15 year old White teenager that filmed the video that is being seen everywhere. He says that race was definitely a factor. “I was one of the only white people in the area when that was happening. You can see in part of the video where he tells us to sit down, and he kinda like skips over me and tells all my African-American friends to go sit down.”

In the video you see the cops going after everyone with dark skin and handcuffing or rounding them up. At one point there is even a lecture given to some seated on the ground. When I saw that I thought “Sir, this is not the time.” The cop asked why they ran, they said because everyone else was, and he said that it was a crime. Look. Now. Look. Okay. In the past I used to say that you should stop when the police question you or whatnot. But after a lot of recent events (meaning shootings!) I say either run or just drop to the ground and wait to be shot or beaten. There's no right way to react.

And how can he lecture them that way when moments later a girl that is walking away, but not fast enough, is dragged to the ground and seeing your friends have a weapon drawn on them? Never mind the kid filming all of this. Its like a movie where the cameraman is not involved.

I am glad that the cop resigned because he would be better suited for a job like...telemarketing. But he should not be doing something where he is supposed to create a calm and peaceful environment while being able to shoot at people. That is just not his calling. In so many of these stories I get hung up on the fact that procedures are not being followed or taught properly which just makes everything worse. I'm not saying that the kids involved are ll innocent either because if you're not allowed somewhere you're just not. But that doesn't mean that they should've been treated the way they were.

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