Pool party cop resigns after throwing bikini-clad black girl to the ground in video as police chief calls his
Pool party cop resigns after throwing bikini-clad black girl to the ground in video as police chief calls his actions 'indefensible'
- Officer David Casebolt claims he's received death threats since footage of a confrontation with a group of black Texas teens surfaced last weekend
- A protest nearly 1,000 strong broke out in the Dallas-area city of McKinney on Monday evening
- A viral video showed him pushing a girl to the ground Friday and brandishing his gun at other black teens
The police officer whose video-recorded actions at a North Texas pool party have drawn national attention and a protest nearly 1,000-strong has resigned from the police force.
Officer David Eric Casebolt resigned Tuesday from the McKinney Police Department after almost 10 years on the force.
His resignation was confirmed by his attorney, Jane Bishkin of Dallas and comes after calls for his termination resonated across the Dallas-area city of McKinney and beyond via social media.
Resigned: Eric Casebolt, a police officer in McKinney, Texas, stirred widespread controversy by pulling his gun on partying teenagers and forcefully throwing 15-year-old Dajerria Becton (right) onto the ground
Caught: Cell phone footage of the incident shows Casebolt forcefully arresting this bikini-clad girl as other teens, and around a dozen other officers, looked on
McKinney's police chief said after the resignation that Casebolt's actions were 'indefensible.'
McKinney Police Chief Greg Conley made the comments during a news conference Tuesday after Officer David Eric Casebolt resigned.
A viral video showed him pushing a bikini-clad girl to the ground on Friday and brandishing his gun at other black teens after he and other officers responded to complaints about the pool party at a community-owned McKinney swimming pool.
Chief Greg Conley had placed the 41-year-old former Texas state trooper on administrative leave after the incident.
Bishkin declined to say where Casebolt is now and said he had received death threats. The attorney said she would release more information at a news conference Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a police union on Tuesday afternoon defended how officers handled the pool party disturbance.
The incident, about 30 miles north of Dallas, is the latest to draw attention to the issue of police use of force in the United States, especially against minorities.
The McKinney Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) said the conduct of police in the incident had nothing to do with race.
Protests: Hundreds marched through the Dallas-area city 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
Racial issue? Casebolt, who is white, is seen shouting obscenities at black youths in a multiracial crowd, shoving a black teenage girl, briefly pointing his gun at African-American youths and throwing the girl in her bathing suit, who is black, to the ground, burying his knees in her back
'The McKinney FOP assures that this was not a racially motivated incident and can say without a shadow of doubt that all members of the McKinney FOP and McKinney PD (police department) do not conduct racially biased policing,' the union said in a statement on Monday.
Hundreds of people rallied in McKinney on Monday night demanding the firing of Eric Casebolt, the officer seen in the video. Casebolt has been placed on administrative leave by the department and has not spoken publicly about the incident.
He needs to be disciplined and go through a formal program and have de-escalation and anger management courses. That officer could have hurt those kids really badly.
I'm glad he didn't shoot them.