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Deeper Questions About McKinney

Ruben Navarrett Jr. on

SAN DIEGO -- According to the lore of the Old West, an elite group of lawmen offered a simple equation for keeping the peace: "One riot, one Ranger." In frontier days, it supposedly took only one Texas Ranger to put down a disturbance.

I wonder how many are needed to clean up after a pool party?

This week, it was announced that the Texas Rangers will investigate the now infamous June 5 incident at a neighborhood pool in the town of McKinney, near Dallas, in which a police officer was caught on video pinning a 15-year-old girl to the ground and brandishing his gun at other teenagers. The officer is white, the girl is African-American. So the controversy was unavoidable.

Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis asked for the inquiry to "add an important layer of transparency to the process."

It's been almost two weeks since the ruckus, and many Americans still don't understand what happened and why. Part of the reason is that much of the media attention has lacked three things that are valuable in providing context: clarity, nuance and common sense.

Cpl. Eric Casebolt, the officer in question, has resigned from the force. He is now staying at an undisclosed location after getting death threats -- a part of the story that the media apparently didn't find newsworthy enough to explore further. They should have, given numerous instances in recent months in which police officers, their vehicles and even their station houses have been attacked.

Through his attorney, Jane Bishkin, Casebolt issued a pseudo-apology that blamed work-related stress. Earlier that day, he had responded to a pair of suicide calls, the attorney said.

Rather than admit that he did something wrong and say he was sorry for doing it, Casebolt merely expressed regret -- again through Bishkin -- "that his conduct portrayed him and his department in a negative light."

Clearly, the conduct was deplorable. Casebolt lost control, and he acted in a way that was unprofessional. He'll be better off in another line of work. But, mostly, it was the media and anti-police activists who used the incident to portray law enforcement in a negative light.

 

Still, it feels like we're missing something.

We're missing clarity. Casebolt wasn't the only person who overreacted. The security guard at the pool who called 911 because a group of young people refused to leave the premises may have gotten carried away. So did the 911 operator or police dispatcher who sent 12 officers to the scene in order to quell the disturbance. And, as for the death threats, if you want to talk about taking leave of one's senses, anyone who threatens the life of a police officer certainly fits the profile.

And we're missing nuance. While Bishkin claimed that race wasn't a factor, the jury is still out. She insisted that the officer wasn't targeting minorities that day, but that's not the issue. No one has said that Casebolt got out of bed that morning with the specific intent of finding some people of color to harass. What activists are concerned about is that, once the officer arrived on the scene and found a group of both white and black people, he seemed to make snap judgments about who was dangerous and who wasn't based on skin color. And while Bishkin also claimed that Casebolt had detained a white girl that day as well, there has been no evidence that he was as rough with her as he was with the African-American teenager.

And, most of all, we're missing common sense. The young people at the center of this incident must also be held accountable. The girl who was pinned to the ground repeatedly ignored Casebolt's orders to lie down. Didn't anyone ever teach this young lady to obey police officers when they're making a reasonable request? And Casebolt only drew his gun when a couple of other teenagers -- who were apparently attempting to help the girl being subdued -- moved toward him, as he was in the vulnerable position of kneeling on the ground. You don't interfere with a police officer. Again, didn't anyone teach these kids to respect authority and not act in foolish ways that could lead to them getting hurt -- or worse?

When it comes to how one former police officer reacted, something went wrong that day in North Texas. That's for sure. But, when it comes to the bigger picture, and the rest of society, something went wrong long before that.

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Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com.


Copyright 2015 Washington Post Writers Group

 

 

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