Tom Fox/Staff Photographer
A large crowd of protesters gathered at the Craig Ranch pool where McKinney Police Cpl. Eric Casebolt was seen on video pinning a 14-year-old African-American girl to the ground and pointing his gun at other teenagers. The group marched to the pool from Joyce Kelley Comstock Elementary and back.
Dueling views of McKinney melee fault intruding teens, racist adults, police officer
By WENDY HUNDLEY, NAOMI MARTIN AND JEFFREY WEISS
Staff Writers
McKINNEY — Either racist white residents of Craig Ranch and McKinney police harassed neighborhood black kids at a pool party Friday — or law officers safely dispersed a loud, out-of-control mob of interloping teenagers.
Those were the competing narratives circulating Monday about an incident that has become a national flashpoint about racism and police tactics.
Some white Craig Ranch residents said they were so frightened about the reaction that they were packing up and leaving their homes temporarily. Some black Craig Ranch residents called for sharp action against the police and held two protests Monday evening.
About 500 people marched from Comstock Elementary School to the pool where the incident occurred.
Speakers vowed that their city would not become another Baltimore or Ferguson, Mo., cities where shootings of unarmed blacks led to days of unrest.
“This is our city,” said Derrick Golden, pastor at Amazing Church in McKinney. “The issue we have in McKinney is not only a racism issue; it’s a classism issue.”
The crowd consisted mostly of African-Americans, many of whom said the teenagers were good kids who were treated unjustly.
“Most of these kids are my clients,” said Lashadion Anthony, a barber and real-estate agent in the city. “This is not a race issue; this is a compassion issue.”
The second protest was conducted at the police station and drew a diverse crowd, some carrying signs protesting police brutality.
Denzel LaBiche, 17, who just graduated from Frisco Wakeland High School, said he has a new appreciation for the challenges of the civil rights movement.
“I always wondered what it was like way back then,” said Denzel, who attended the protest with his sister, Diamond, 16. “I get to give a speech to my kids now.”
McKinney officials said nothing new Monday about one of the key officers involved.
Cpl. David Eric Casebolt was caught on video cursing, throwing a 15-year-old girl to the ground and pulling his gun on unarmed teenagers who had rushed toward him.
He remained on administrative leave while the department investigates.
That video, as well as a second video that showed a 19-year-old black woman scrapping with two white women, has been viewed by millions of people online.
But residents of Craig Ranch on both sides of the dispute agreed that theirs was an unlikely neighborhood to set off a new national argument about racism.
Although it is mostly white, the subdivision includes hundreds of black residents. And the community pool had never been a problem before.
Between official accounts and interviews with people who were in the neighborhood Friday, some details seem clear:
The party was originally organized with several neighborhood teens who wanted to celebrate the last day of school at the admission-restricted community pool.
A mostly black crowd showed up, and the music was loud. At one point, some people who had not been invited jumped over a fence and were confronted by a security guard. Overwhelmed, he called the police.
Beyond those details, there is plenty of dispute.
Craig Ranch resident Bryan Gestner posted on Facebook: “This was a Twitter party that turned into a mob event. Jumping pool fence. Assaulting 2 security guards, attacking a mother with three little girls. The video doesn’t show everything.” He said that the kids were drinking and “smoking weed” and would not listen to the adults around the pool.
“This isn’t about race,” he said. “This is about outside kids invading our neighborhood, and had no respect for authority or the residents here.”
The McKinney Fraternal Order of Police issued a written statement Monday saying it was sure “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 do not conduct racially biased policing.”
“The subjects involved were a mixture of teens and adults who were trespassing not in a community pool but a private property pool regulated and maintained by this particular Home Owners Association,” the statement said. “Vandalism and active fighting was reported in the same area involving this group of teens and adults.”
But Jahda Bakari, 13, who lives in Craig Ranch, said there were no drugs or alcohol at the party, which had been planned for several weeks and was promoted on social media.
Initially, most of the teens at the party were from Craig Ranch or nearby neighborhoods, she said.
“The party was mainly black kids,” she said. “We all knew each other.”
Jahda said tensions escalated when uninvited teenagers began jumping the fence to get into the party and police responded.
Her father, Jahi Bakari, said he understood why some of the partygoers reacted to the police with alarm.
Bakari said he tells his children to run from the police if they haven’t done anything wrong, because of concerns about police brutality.
“The kids saw four police cars, and they started running,” he said. “Being a black youth today in this climate, after Ferguson and Baltimore, I would’ve done the same — I tell them, ‘You see the cops, you go.’ There’s nothing but bad things that can possibly happen. This is a case of truth right here.”
Ladariene McKever, 15, said a friend had invited her to the party.
From the beginning, a pool staff member bothered the group about not having enough pool passes to be there, she said. But she said the group of about 30 wasn’t asked to leave until the police arrived.
“He came over and said we were horseplaying when there were plenty of other kids horseplaying around us too,” she said of the staff member. “Some of the parents complained that we were being disrespectful to them, but we were being respectful. We weren’t making a big scene and taking over the pool.”
She said a group of parents who weren’t part of the party talked about calling the police, prompting some of the males at the party to hop over the fence, she said.
About that time, a fight broke out between the 19-year-old who helped organize the party and an older white woman, Ladariene said.
The narrative of that fight is also a matter of dispute. A video was widely distributed on conservative websites as evidence that some of the teens were violent.
But in an interview posted on YouTube, Tatyana Rhodes, who is black and lives in Craig Ranch, told a photojournalist that another woman, who is white, “was saying things such as ‘black [expletive],’ and ‘That’s why you live in Section 8 homes,’” before slapping her in the face.
The video shows that once police arrived, some of the partygoers tried to leave. Several officers moved through the crowd without incident.
But Casebolt’s reaction was angry. That probably wasn’t the right approach, said Harvey Hedden, executive director of the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association.
Hedden said he had seen snippets of the video but didn’t know the full story. However, from what he saw, he said, Casebolt’s decision to draw his gun could have created a problem.
“The problem with the firearm is that it’s actually a more limited-force option than you’d think,” he said, “because if you realize it’s not a deadly-force situation, and you need to stop somebody, you can’t use it.”
Casebolt also can be heard on the video lamenting that he had to run around in 90-degree heat while wearing “30 pounds of gear” — such as his bulletproof vest, radio and utility belt — in a dark uniform. Earlier in the video, he appears to trip and roll while running.
“It’s a real challenge to put those things aside,” Hedden said. “But it is what we’re trying to do.”
Staff writers Tristan Hallman and Charles Scudder contributed to this report.