McKinney police officer Eric Casebolt was placed on leave this weekened after a video of him surfaced throwing Dajerria Becton, a teenage girl, to the ground and pulling out his gun while chasing a number of kids who had been swimming in a pool. To many people, the incident highlighted the now familiar themes of police brutality and racism but, to some, it didn’t look like that at all. Here are 5 unfortunate reactions to the video.
1.) Megyn Kelly declares that teenage girl was “no saint”:
On Monday, Fox Host Megyn Kelly speculated that the incident maybe wasn’t racial. “And now people have made this into a race thing. Are we there yet?” she asked her guests. Then she offered this: “The girl was no saint, either. He had told her to leave, and she continued to linger. When the cop tells you to leave, get out. I’m not defending his actions. Let me make that clear.”
Kelly’s assertion that Becton was “no saint” is consistent with criticisms of other black victims of police abuse after the fact. In a profile of Michael Brown, the Ferguson teen killed by Officer Darren Wilson, the New York Times referred to him as “no angel.” This was the same qualifier that they used when writing about Al Capone.
2. CNN legal analyst Paul Callan says the cop was right to pull his gun out:
Casebolt has been criticized by many for drawing his gun for no reason and pointing it at innocent kids. On Monday, Paul Callan declared that there was actually no problem with this. Callan told CNN host Alisyn Camerota that, “…un-holstering of the gun. The cop’s actions were totally inappropriate up until that moment, but he’s not effecting the arrest of the girl.” Camerota couldn’t believe what she was hearing but Callan continued, “He probably shouldn’t be arresting her but he is. He’s surrounded then by eight civilians, I count them. One kid comes around and looks like he’s approaching him and is going to jump the officer.”
Camerota responded to Callan’s comments the way many people would have “No!” she exclaimed, “Not jump the officer! He’s defending his friend. I mean, when they see this kid thrown to the ground, it’s just, I think, a natural reaction. You want to go defend your friend.”
“From the cop’s standpoint, he’s looking at this big kid, who he thinks is about to jump him,” Callan responded, “He then un-holsters his weapon and the kid backs off. The cop then re-holsters his weapon and continues to subdue. Of all of the things that he did, that’s probably the one thing that most police officers would say was within training and procedure.”
4. Awkward media coverage
It’s hard to pick just one example here, but Larry Wilmore mentioned a notable one on “The Nightly Show.” Wilmore showed a clip of Fox’s Brian Kilmeade segueing from the McKinney story to a segment on Jerry Seinfeld complaining about “the PC Police” on college campuses. “Fox, I am losing all ability to follow you guys,” said Wilmore, “The PC police can fucking wait – let’s keep talking about the real police.”
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