A McKinney police officer was caught on camera grabbing a bikini-clad female teenager, slamming her into the ground and using his knees to hold her down.
- Jun 9, 2015
AceShowbiz - Celebrities were outraged over a recently surfaced video which showed a McKinney, Texas police officer grabbing a bikini-clad female teenager, slamming her into the ground and using his knees to hold her down. Katy Perry and Shonda Rhimes were among some celebrities who took to social media to respond to the incident.
Katy posted, "IS ANYONE ELSE DISGUSTED YET?! WAKE UP AMERICA," along with a link to an article about the incident. Shonda, meanwhile, responded to the incident with some questions. "This vid raises SO many questions about...everything right now. Q1: How hard is it to TO NOT ASSAULT A CHILD?" the "Scandal" creator wrote alongside a video of the incident.
She went on, "Q2: When will a group of kids of color together stop being seen as a gang/ mob and start being seen as AMERICANS. #TakeYourHandsOffOurKids. Q3:My kids didn't wanna get out of pool today. ANYONE think best way 2 handle is grab 'em by throat, slam em to ground & cuff 'em? Hell no. Q4: There are GREAT cops out there. Who also do not want to work in a world with racially biased/racist violent cops. How do we help them? Q5: And how do we make this stop? What are concrete organized ways to affect change? How to end assaults/murders of our kids?"
"I'm not role modeling here. I'm actually ASKING what you all out there are doing.I'm interested to hear/ learn more and tweeples know a lot," she concluded.
IS ANYONE ELSE DISGUSTED YET?! WAKE UP AMERICA: https://t.co/WGSGpZZG30
— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) June 7, 2015
This vid raises SO many questions about...everything right now. https://t.co/x1U5cLtmMw
Q1: How hard is it to TO NOT ASSAULT A CHILD?
— shonda rhimes (@shondarhimes) June 8, 2015Other celebrities like Penn Badgley, David Faustino, Horatio Sanz and Janelle Monae also voiced their opinion via Twitter. Penn wrote, "Is seeing the #McKinney pool party a turning point for the public eye? There's a deep sorrow and rage percolating." David tweeted, "Poolside confrontation puts cops in hot water. (So now they're beating up children... some of them girls. #ToughGuys."
Horatio posted, "In Hollywood the cops are alot cooler with Pool partys." Janelle, meanwhile, added, "I was once a 14 year old blk girl. I can't imagine how I would have responded to the world after being abused and degraded by police. Think."
In the Monday, June 8 episode of "The View", Whoopi Goldberg addressed the incident, saying, "This is why people get pissed off at police officers. I don't know what was going through your head but you are not indicative of what police officers are. You're just not. I hope somebody will figure out what happened and explain to this officer that white kids, black kids, no kids, nobody should be treated like that. Nobody should be man-handled like that."
According to NBC News, the police officer in the video who was identified as Eric Casebolt was questioned by internal police officer on Monday. Eric and other police officers responded to a call about a fight that broke out at the pool party on Friday night. In the video captured by Brandon Brooks, Eric was seen pointing gun at other kids and cursing after slamming the girl to the ground.
Brandon told the site that Eric "was chasing after all those kids just putting every black person he saw on the ground." Jahi Adisa Bakari, whose 13-year-old daughter was involved in the altercation, was "disappointed" with how McKinney cops handled the incident. Jahi said, "Send the proper people out there. I don't like grown men touching my daughters. This man was out of control."
