On the morning of June 6, 2015, a video began making the rounds across social media featuring police responding to a 911 call.
It starts with an officer screaming, "Move!" before doing a barrel roll into the grass and running off. The entire scene looked like something out of an action movie.
Image via Brandon Brooks.
From the video, it's not immediately clear what this is in response to. There doesn't appear to be anyone in imminent danger. There don't seem to be any weapons present.
So what was it that brought the McKinney Police Department to respond like this?
A pool party. Yep.
On their Facebook page, the McKinney Police Department offered an explanation for the call.
It reads:
"Pool Party Incident:
On June 5, 2015 at approximately 7:15 p.m., officers from the McKinney Police Department responded to a disturbance at the Craig Ranch North Community Pool. 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.
First responding officers encountered a large crowd that refused to comply with police commands. Nine additional units responded to the scene. Officers were eventually able to gain control of the situation.
McKinney Police later learned of a video that was taken at the scene by an unknown party. This video has raised concerns that are being investigated by the McKinney Police Department. At this time, one of the responding officers has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of this investigation."
In the video, Officer Eric Casebolt is seen handcuffing bystanders, throwing a teen girl to the ground, and pulling his gun on the crowd.
15-year-old Brandon Brooks, who shot the video, told BuzzFeed that the situation appeared to be racially motivated. “I think a bunch of white parents were angry that a bunch of black kids who don't live in the neighborhood were in the pool," said Brooks, who is white. “Everyone who was getting put on the ground was black, Mexican, Arabic. [The cop] didn't even look at me. It was kind of like I was invisible."
Image via Brandon Brooks.
Local reporter Zahid Arab tweeted out a photo placed at the pool thanking the police officers for their action.
Almost immediately, Twitter users responded, rallying around the #McKinney hashtag.
The Southern Poverty Law Center tweeted out a post as a reminder of the country's history of racially segregated swimming pools.
The contrast in this picture, however, might be one of the most powerful looks at how police treat white people as opposed to how they treat people of color.
On the left, there's Officer Casebolt, pinning an unarmed teenage girl to the ground with his knee. On the right, we see the primarily white group of bikers allegedly involved in a fatal shooting just two hours away from McKinney.
If there's one thing to heartened by, it's that all this was caught on camera.
It's become sad but necessary for the public to film the world around them to document these atrocities. It would be naive to treat police violence as a new phenomenon; it's just that cellphone cameras have made recording it that much easier.
Putting an end to police violence means we must begin holding officers accountable for their actions and not simply putting them on paid leave (like Officer Casebolt).
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