Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Media, Society

Texas Police Officer Suspended After Release of Videotape Of Response To Disturbance At Pool Party

Screen Shot 2015-06-08 at 8.48.04 AMA McKinney, Texas police officer has been suspended pending review after the posting of a videotape where he draws his gun and manhandles a group of teenagers outside of a pool party. The officer has been identified as Cpl. Eric Casebolt and he is shown being verbally and physically abusive toward young people who are not clearly doing anything unlawful.

The pulling out of the gun is a rapid escalation in a call over a dispute between a mother and a girl at the party. The McKinney Police Department’s Facebook page states that officers responded to a “disturbance” at the Craig Ranch North community pool at 7:15 p.m. It added that the juveniles at the scene “do not live in the area or have permission to be there.” It further says that people failed to respond to orders and officers struggled to “gain control of the situation.”

ericcasebolt-e1433704705104caseboltparty3-e1433735471752Casebolt,40, is a 10-year-veteran and serves as a vice president of McKinney’s police union. He received an award for “Patrolman of the Year” in 2008. The Washington Post reports that he is an instructor at Executive Self-Defense and Fitness and has a website that heralds his “ strong working knowledge of human behavior” and “experience in the use of all levels of force.” As is often the case, people have collected various pictures of Casebolt though the one dressed as an Indian chief at a party seems to be the favorite. That is part of the reality of the world of social media today.

Do you consider this level of force to be justified?

437 thoughts on “Texas Police Officer Suspended After Release of Videotape Of Response To Disturbance At Pool Party”

  1. BamBam, tell me how I advocated depriving Casebolt of an investigation, or his day in court? Not one commenter here advocated any such thing. We are expressing our opinions here, we are not members of the jury, or the McKinny PD. based on the video, he engaged blatant misconduct. It appears the McKinney PD agreed.

    1. Truthfully, this comes down to a cost/benefit analysis. Has there been sufficient time to thoroughly investigate this entire saga? Probably not. It doesn’t matter. This isn’t about finding out the truth or pursuing justice. This is about a cop who is expendable. Just another cog in the wheel. McKinney likes its CVS, Foot Locker and Quik Trip businesses. No one wants the place burned to the ground. Lesson learned from Ferguson and Baltimore. Better to have this guy resign and make a public announcement against him BEFORE a thorough investigation has been conducted. No time for those formalities. The bomb has been lit. Quiet the formation of any potential angry mobs, hell bent on destroying the town, and play dead. Can’t say I blame them.

      1. bam bam – I do not mean to be petty about this, but I think we have a CYA situation. He resigns. They say it is indefensible. However, no investigation could have taken place if they were working 24/7 to clear this up. The chum was in the water, they were just waiting for the sharks.

  2. I. Annie

    Should you ever be accused of any type of wrongdoing–and I sincerely wish that never happens–I truly hope that those, sitting in judgment of you, will grant you the opportunity, which you and others so wrongly deprive this officer, of defending yourself to the fullest extent and without any preconceptions. Even if the facts against you appear to reveal the entire story, I can only say that my wish is that those judging you grant you the opportunity to allow all facts to surface and not allow the angry mobs to determine your destiny. That would appear to be more than you, along with some others on here, are willing to grant this officer. Karma sometimes is a real b$&#h!

  3. @bams

    Some of the people here don’t have to drink Kool Aid. The stuff already runs through their veins instead of blood. A white cop throws a black gal on the ground, and that is all they need to know to be absolutely positive what was going on. Reality is not only not their friend, it isn’t even a stranger they pass on the street.

    @NickS

    I know. Some of them think if they file a suit, it will cause the city or state to drop the case against them. But to some of the goobers here, a dismissed lawsuit constitutes evidence.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

  4. BamBam, there were people vociferously defending him, DBQ and Karen are just two of them. All sorts of ‘reasons’ given for this jerk’s misconduct. Obviously the McKinney PD didn’t agree he was justified in his actions.

  6. Squeeky, Prisoners file so many lawsuits some judges have law clerks whose job it is to solely handle inmate lawsuits.

  7. The suit against Casebolt was dismissed. Prisoners file all kinds of suits. The overwhelming number are frivolous. Some examples:

    — Florida A.G.’s Top 10 Frivolous Prison Inmate Lawsuits

    10) Prisoner claims discrimination because he was not given a Department of Corrections raincoat like other inmates. (Walker v. DOC)

    9) Prisoner sues to be served fresh rather than reconstituted milk. (Gerteisen v. Bowers)

    8) Prisoner sues for right to conduct martial arts sparring and full- contact fighting as part of his religion. (Gibson v. Miller)

    7) Prisoner sues over being served three cheese sandwiches a day for one week while in disciplinary confinement. (Derks v. Perrin, Jr.)

    6) Prisoner sues because he was required to eat off of a paper plate. (Procup v. Strickland, et al)

    5) Prisoner who has filed more than 140 actions in state and federal court sues over finding gristle in his turkey leg. (Attwood v. Bowers)

    4) Prisoner sues to be served fruit juice at meals and three pancakes instead of two. (Spradley v.Rathman)

    3) Prisoner who murdered five people sues after lightning knocks out the prison’s TV satellite dish and he must watch network programs which he says contain violence, profanity and other objectionable material. (Jackson v. Barton)

    2) Prisoner sues to be given Reeboks, Adidas, Pony or Avia brand hightops rather than inferior brand sneakers issued by prison. (Brown v. Singletary)

    1) Prisoner who lost a lawsuit claiming his rights as a Muslim were violated because the prison put “essence of swine” in his food announces his conversion to Satanism and sues for tarot cards and doves’ blood. (Marshall v. DOC)

    — Suits By Harry Franklin, An Inmate In The Oregon State Penitentiary

    * Franklin claimed he was denied daily half-hour out-of-cell walks. The judge found this claim surprising, because in other filings Franklin alleged he was crippled.

    * He claimed prison guards abridged his “right to be supplied” with T- shirts, a claim which had previously been dismissed.

    * He claimed he did not receive “some unspecified medical treatment because an officer neglected to wake him from his afternoon nap,” causing him “mental frustration,” which the judge learned meant “that someone got his dander up.”

    * Franklin sued prison guards who he alleged “wear clopping heels on their boots, which causes plaintiff to feel he’s in a Natsy [sic] prison camp.”

    * He asserted that his right to free speech was violated because prison staff discliplined him “for commenting on a guard’s allegedly out-of- wedlock birth.”

    * He sought $3 million in damages for “mental frustration” he suffered when a Portland television station allegedly misidentified a “14 wheeler tractor and trailer rig” as an “18 wheeler.”

    * Franklin launched constitutional challenges to Oregon statutes which denied felons the ability to be candidates for public office or to vote during their incarceration.

    * Franklin brought up some Oregon history in one of his claims. In 1923, the D’Autermont boys robbed a train in the Sikiyou Mountains, killing several railroadmen. According to Franklin, since the incident, trains blew their whistles as they pass the penitentiary in the early morning hours, violating his “right to public piece [sic].” The judge found that “Even assuming the railroads do carry on such a heinous practice, it would not violate one of Franklin’s federally protected rights.”

    * He sued “Ronal Regan and his constiuants [sic]” for $8.9 million for “violation of undue restraint” in connection with an Oregon seatbelt law. he believed the law was underinclusive because it did not apply to bicycles and horses as well as cars.

    * He complained that he lost sleep on three occasions because the penitentiary’s steam heater pipes snap and pop, and that he endured “Harassment by Water” because the prison authority’s over-watering of the prison yard in the summer made it difficult for him to find a dry place to lie down.

    * He claimed the pentitentiary’s cleanliness rules violated his “constitutional right to accumulate an unlimited number of newspaper clippings.”

    * Franklin was also a reformer, suing Oregon’s governor, attorney general, legislators, and judges for failing “to pass Legislation which would keep our System such as The Courts, &/or Jails from being so corrupt.”

    * He complained that the penitentiary food service bakes desserts in aluminum rather than stainless steel pans, and that he could not eat from aluminum pans because the “scrapings” from the pans would “settle in [his] Human Joints.”

    http://www.lectlaw.com/files/fun30.htm

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

  8. I guess this is what the ” investigation” revealed. This guy is a loose cannon and those who were so vociferously defending him fools. Karma worked quickly on this one.

    1. I. Annie

      I saw no one on this thread vociferously defending this officer. What I did notice were several people calling for a thorough and complete investigation to be allowed to take its course before anyone is unjustly convicted and condemned in the public arena. That’s not being a fool. Far from it. The poorly shot video only gives a glimpse into what may have occurred and does not give a complete picture of the entire episode. One contributor to this thread repeatedly claimed that an investigation would not yield any further mitigating facts, claiming that all one needed to do was witness part of what transpired, on the clip, to make a decision as to what truly happened. Who again is the fool?

      Remember Mike Brown and the false HANDS UP, DON’T SHOOT narrative? The flashlight story may be as truthful as that. Don’t be so eager to drink the Koolaid.

  9. http://heavy.com/news/2015/06/eric-casebolt-mckinney-cop-officer-was-sued-for-racial-bias-sexual-assault-harassment-albert-brown-arrest-pull-pants-down-federal-documents-dismissed/ “Brown accused Casebolt of reaching into his “private area” and pulling his pants “down below ankles” during the traffic stop.

    Brown was parked on the wrong side of a road in McKinney, according to the civil complaint. Casebolt told Brown he was going to write him a ticket for the traffic offense, but then said he saw two marijuana seeds and an open container in the car.

    Brown said Casebolt also remarked about the “white girls” who were with him and made comments about him and his clothes.

    Brown also claimed in the lawsuit that another officer, Lee Keith, slammed his head into the hood of the car repeatedly. He said Keith held him while Casebolt pulled his pants down. Another officer, who is not named in the lawsuit, allegedly spread his legs while one of the officers shined a flashlight in his anus.”

    1. Resigning, if indeed he did, gives him the best chance of keeping his pension, getting a new job, etc.

  11. YES! The out of control cop resigned! Great news. Hope he doesn’t get hired by some other PD and goes on to actually harm someone.

  12. Some of the newer more conservative commenters seem to have forgotten this is a Civil Liberties blog, or it used to be anyway.

  13. Wade, it sounds as if she thinks that cops should be free to overstep their bounds without the population protesting and expressing outrage. Cops are not above the law and we should not make the lawlessness of some of them become something that is expected, routine and condoned.

    1. Some of the older commentaters have forgotten that cops have certain rights that civilians don’t. And cops have Civil Liberties, too, or used to anyway.

  14. Dusty is a small government, no regulation, gun totin’, live and let live, freedom lovin’ advocate.

    But getta look at that list of forbidden activities that she endorses at 1:30!

    I’m not forbidding you to do anything. You can stick your p3nis in a light socket if you wish. I’m merely warning you that there are consequences.

    I assume you are a big boy and able to handle the consequences of your own actions. Much to big to go crying to big momma when you get your @ss handed to you on a platter.

    Free to choose. Even to choose to do stupid stuff is my motto. I’m free to laugh at you when you do.

    😀

  15. Love it!

    Dusty is a small government, no regulation, gun totin’, live and let live, freedom lovin’ advocate.

    But getta look at that list of forbidden activities that she endorses at 1:30!

    And mind your waistbands, folks!

    BUT,

    show up at a teen pool party with your open carry AK-47? Perfectly legal folks. Not a problem. Remember – it’s WAISTBANDS that will cause an officer to draw his gun. Your AK-47 is Freedom!

  16. TJustice – thank you for comparing my thinking to Bill Kristol.

  17. This notion of listening to a bunch of idiot kids in videos claim they are angels and not criticizing their actions that led to their incident is simply ridiculous. Of course there will be an investigation, of course there should be an investigation. Stupid kids are not some sacrosanct entity that can not be held responsible even before the final results of an investigation are made public.

  18. Now that we are a fully armed and open carry society (that’s a joke – ‘society’) we had better start teaching our children NOT to touch their waistbands when in the vicinity of law enforcement. That is an aggressive and potentially deadly move.

    Now you are finally making sense!!!!. (I know you were trying to be sarcastic and failed)

    When there is a tense situation of any kind, refrain from making moves that could be considered threatening to people who have arms and who are already feeling in danger. Don’t poke sticks at bears. Kick rottweilers. Take pictures of lions through the open window of your car.

    You don’t tug on Superman’s cape
    You don’t spit into the wind
    You don’t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger
    And you don’t mess around with Slim

    …or the police….or a bunch of drunken loggers….or a biker and his bike…..yell chinga tu madre at a M-13 member……and a whole lot of other situations where you might THINK you have the right and you might even be in the right.

    In other words don’t let your mouth or your actions write a check your @ss can’t cash.

    Trust me.

  19. Okay then..

    Now that we are a fully armed and open carry society (that’s a joke – ‘society’) we had better start teaching our children NOT to touch their waistbands when in the vicinity of law enforcement. That is an aggressive and potentially deadly move.

  20. This notion of having to “wait for an investigation” to criticize cops in videos is simply ridiculous. Of course there will be an investigation, of course there should be an investigation. Police are not some sacrosanct entity that cannot be criticized, even before the final results of an investigation are made public.

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