Justice

Thousands Are Protesting in McKinney, Texas to Condemn Police Racism

June 9th 2015

Video of a Texas police officer wrestling a 15-year-old Black girl to the ground and drawing his gun on several other Black teenagers has spread like wildfire on social media.

On Monday evening, thousands of residents in McKinney, Texas began protesting to condemn the actions of Officer Eric Casebolt who is currently on administrative leave as officials investigate why a call to deal with alleged unruly teenagers at a pool party escalated to the intense situation seen in the video. 

Pete Schulte, an attorney and former McKinney officer and deputy reserve, told Fox4 Dallas that the police force has a race problem.  

“There is an indication based on watching the video that the white people who were around the officers weren’t talked to, they weren’t pushed away, they weren’t told to get on the ground, they weren’t put in handcuffs. The only individuals McKinney police were doing that to were those that were African-American,” he said.

Here are some photos and tweets of tonight's protests in McKinney:

Greg Conley, the Chief of Police for McKinney, held a press conference to address the incident. You can watch it here:

On their Facebook page on Sunday, the McKinney Police Department released the following statement about the 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.

Here are more photos and Vine videos of the citizen protests that occurred in McKinney on Monday:

You can read ATTN:'s full recap of the story from McKinney, Texas here

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