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  • 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-

All right, joining me now is former McKinney police officer, long time reserve deputy,

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