June 10--The Texas police officer who drew his gun on unarmed teenagers at a pool party and threw a 14-year-old girl in a bikini to the ground has resigned, officials said Tuesday.
Cpl. Eric Casebolt had been suspended since Sunday after video emerged of him aggressively confronting black teenagers at the party Friday evening in McKinney, a suburb of Dallas.
City officials condemned his actions as they announced the resignation.
"Our policy, our training, our practices do not support these actions," McKinney Police Chief Greg Conley told reporters at a televised news conference, calling Casebolt's actions "indefensible."
"He came to the call out of control," Conley said. "I had 12 officers on the scene, and 11 of them performed according to their training."
A bystander's video, which garnered millions of views on YouTube, showed Casebolt shouting and cursing at teenagers who did not appear to be acting violently or aggressively. Casebolt, who is white, wrestled some black youths to the ground.
Officials said residents had called the police to complain about an out-of-control party and fighting. Some teenagers said they had permission to be at the pool and said residents had harassed them.
The incident prompted a protest Monday as police promised to investigate Casebolt's actions.
With Casebolt's resignation, the internal investigation comes to an end, Conley said, and Casebolt will keep his pension and benefits. The chief added that a criminal investigation was ongoing and would take "a matter of time to work through."
Mayor Brian Loughmiller told reporters that he was keeping close tabs on the situation and had met with local community leaders to discuss their concerns.
"We all have to learn from what occurred," said Loughmiller.
Jane Bishkin, a Dallas attorney who represents Casebolt and several police unions, told the Los Angeles Times in a text message that there would be a statement about Casebolt's resignation 1 p.m. Wednesday.
The episode tapped into the ongoing national furor over how police handle black community members. This one was unusual in that no one involved appeared to have been seriously hurt.
Even so, the video drew public condemnation and, for some critics, summoned memories of the nation's segregation years, when African Americans were denied the right to swim in pools with white Americans.
But the McKinney Fraternal Order of Police, the union that represented Casebolt, said Monday that "this was not a racially motivated incident" and said McKinney police do not conduct "racially biased policing."
In the video taken by a bystander, officers can be seen sprinting through a subdivision near the pool as clusters of teens stand around and watch.
"A fight between a mom and a girl broke out and when the cops showed up everyone ran, including the people who didn't do anything," the user who uploaded the video to YouTube on Saturday wrote in a caption. "So the cops just started putting everyone on the ground and in handcuffs for no reason."
The user identified himself as Brandon Brooks.
On the video, one teen can be heard telling an officer, "Sir, we're just here for a birthday party, please!"
Casebolt in particular drew public scorn after the video showed him confronting black teens aggressively, forcing young men in the group on the ground and using profanities as he told the lingering youths, by turns, to either stay on the ground or to leave the area.
"Don't make me ... run around here with 30 pounds of goddamn gear on in the sun because you want to screw around out here," he told a couple of black teenagers he had ordered to sit on the ground.
At one point in the video, Casebolt walked up to a 14-year-old black girl in a bikini and wrestled her down to a sidewalk, forcing her head down with his hand. That upset other teens who were standing around peacefully.
When two unarmed teenage boys rushed up, the officer pulled out his gun, and they ran away.
"Call my mama!" the girl in the bikini, now emotional, calls out while sitting up on the sidewalk.
Casebolt then picks her up from the sidewalk, throws her back down on the grass and then on her face, and puts his knee on her back as a couple of white adults stand between him and the teens still standing nearby.
"He grabbed me, twisted my arm on my back and shoved me in the grass and started pulling the back of my braids," the girl, Dajerria Becton, told KDFW-TV. She said she had been invited to the party and was not involved in any fighting. "I was telling him to get off me because my back was hurting bad."
UPDATES
4:52 p.m.: This post has been updated with background on the video.
4:09 p.m.: This post has been updated with information from a news conference confirming the resignation and calling the officer's conduct indefensible.
3:32 p.m.: This post has been updated with more details.
3:02 p.m.: This post has been updated with background on the events following the pool party.
This post was originally published at 2:48 p.m.
