Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles All right, joining me now is former McKinney police officer, long time reserve deputy, and criminal defense attorney, Pete Schulte. Pete, thanks for coming by. Let's go ahead, and get straight to the video. (Video audio) All right, so Pete, this party described as a group of about 70 people. Before police even get there, this fight breaks out between two women captured on cellphone video. They're separated, but things escalating on their own, and we don't know exactly how this call went into police. but we do know that they're told that there are some kids who are there, and they aren't supposed to be there. How do officers approach situations like this? You know, officers respond to a lot of party calls all the time. I mean, if there's no indication that there's any weapons, or anybody's been hurt or seriously injured, what they're gonna do is they're gonna show up and kind of gather the situation, what's happening at the scene. Uh, they're not gonna generally run uh towards people, or order them to the ground, or do certain things, but they're gonna try to get kind of a mindset of what's happening. And we don't know if they had any indication that these were children or teens. Right, I mean, I think the call notes just came out that this is still light, this isn't night time, that they were people at a community pool that shouldn't be there, so they want the police to show up, either issue criminal trespass warnings and get them to leave. Ok, so now the second piece of video. (Video sounds) This video where Officer Casebolt literally runs full speed, we see him even somersault into frame, but the first officer that we see is interacting with the teens. He is calm, he is courteous, he's professional. You can't really hear him there, but he's talking to them um just very calmly, matter of factly. Then the camera pans over, and that's when we see Casebolt again. Now he is using profanity, telling everyone to get down. Really a huge difference in how these officers are behaving. Yea, absolutely, and I'll tell you Natalie, what really bothered me about this particular situation is you do have one officer who has individuals that he's questioning and talking to, and then you have Corporal Casebolt that comes around, and he is very aggressive. He starts using profanity, and officers are trained, you never use curse words or use profanity, cause it only escalates the situation. You have to stay more professional than the people you're potentially dealing with. And I didn't see that here. I saw several officers that were minding, you know, their business, and doing what they were supposed to do, and one officer who happened, I guess, to be identified as Corporal Casebolt, who was acting very aggressive and doing things that I don't think were appropriate. Ok, and the other thing that I think jumps out about all this is that Casebolt, as he's trying to get them to disperse, the other officers are kind of just hanging back. Yea, and I think the reason for that is, if you notice the uh the yellow stripes on his shoulder pads, on his uniform? That means he's a supervisor, so he is their boss. And so that would be the equivalent of a regular employee challenging their boss in the middle of a work situation. So that's why I believe, you don't have other officers that are trying to challenge Corporal Casebolt, because it's their boss. Right, and they're looking to him for direction... They are, they're looking for... of how they are going to respond to this group. Right, they're looking for him for leadership, they're looking for him for, you know, trying to figure out how we're going to handle this, and if you notice, none of the other officers start reacting the same way as the Corporal did. Very big difference. All right, and now the third piece of video. I think this is very, very telling. (Video sounds) It does appear as if that this group of women that he's telling to leave, that they finally do turn around and start to walk off, but that's when he takes off after the girl with the long hair, and that's Dajerria Becton, and she is in a bikini, she's holding a towel, she is clearly unarmed. Hard to tell, but sounds like she is yelling back at him, as she's walking away. Is that any reason for him to go after her like that? You know, to tell you, you know, officers, they have, we have this saying that we can't be offended. Because we're officers of the law, we're not individuals. I don't care what she was yelling at that officer. I mean, anything would not have said what he did and would have justified throwing her to the ground and pushing her down and throwing her face in the concrete like he did. I mean, police officers are human, Natalie. Emotions can sometimes get the best of them, but in this particular case, I think the emotions went a little crazy. And just, he pulls a gun, and we have a couple more quick points to make. There he is right now, pulling off, pulling the gun out of the holster. Which, there's no reason for that. I mean, I think, the officer, Casebolt, perceived that he was being threatened by people, but, and that usually is a common tactic, is to pull a weapon, if you feel like you are being threatened. but in this particular case, you see the other officers come up behind him and kind of actually push the gun away I think that's indicative of saying that this was probably a little too much. and he was, again, these were his emotions, I think they just got too high, and that's why he was reacting the way he did. Ok, and last quick, and we got to be quick here, uh, the group, African American, we see the officers are white. How big of a factor is race in all of this, and does this have the potential to be a more um explosive situation? Whether we like it or not, there is an indication based on watching the video, that the white people that were around the officer 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 that the McKinney police were doing that to were those that were African American. McKinney police have got to get this under control before tomorrow. At this point in America, in policing, there's too much out there right now, with Baltimore, Ferguson, they gotta get out in front of this, and make sure that the citizens, even in, outside of the city of McKinney, understand that they're gonna do the right thing and take care of action, and this was not racially motivated. All right, ok Pete, thank you so much for your time, and I know we will continue to stay on this story uh through tomorrow. to see the entire video you can go to our website -Fox4news.com-
B1 US officer corporal police pete indication situation Legal analyst on McKinney PD pool party video 497 9 Joyce Lee posted on 2015/06/29 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary