At a pool party in Texas, an officer was filmed pointing his gun at youngsters, grabbing a bikini-clad girl by the neck, and screaming obscenities.
According to the McKinney, Texas, Police Department, officers were dispatched to deal with juveniles who did “not live in the area or have permission to be there, refusing to leave.” Other reports claim that black children at the event were subjected to racist remarks and that police were responding to an assault report.
The footage shows one officer rolling on the ground, Reno 911-style, then pursuing someone off-screen. Nearby, another officer talks calmly with bystanders. A fourth officer, however, is seen grabbing a boy and pulling him down, then shouting angrily at nearby youngsters and ordering some of them “on the ground”, and others to “get your ass out of here.”
The officer begins cuffing some of the boys, then stands anxiously in the street for some time before returning to where more youngsters are gathering.
“Don’t make me fucking run around here with thirty pounds of god-damn gear in the sun,” he shouts at them. Moments later, all the while bellowing more or less incoherently, he drags a girl in a bikini to the ground, then pulls a weapon on nearby kids as they surround them.
Another officer grabs him briefly by the arm, but is shrugged off. He returns to the girl in the bikini, pushing her to the ground and holding her down with his knee.
“On your face!” he tells her. He notices shortly thereafter that he is being filmed, and tells the filmer to “get out of here.”
After the footage surfaced, the officer—whose name has not yet been disclosed—was placed on administrative leave.
Pool Party Incident:
On June 5, 2015 at approximately 7:15 p.m., officers from the McKinney Police Department responded to a disturbance at the Craig Ranch North Community Pool. The initial call came in as a disturbance involving multiple juveniles at the location, who do not live in the area or have permission to be there, refusing to leave. McKinney Police received several additional calls related to this incident advising that juveniles were now actively fighting.
First responding officers encountered a large crowd that refused to comply with police commands. Nine additional units responded to the scene. Officers were eventually able to gain control of the situation.
McKinney Police later learned of a video that was taken at the scene by an unknown party. This video has raised concerns that are being investigated by the McKinney Police Department. At this time, one of the responding officers has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of this investigation.
On the video description, the poster, named as Brandon Brooks, wrote that cops were responding to a fight and “just started putting everyone on the ground.”
A fight between a mom and a girl broke out and when the cops showed up everyone ran, including the people who didn’t do anything. So the cops just started putting everyone on the ground and in handcuffs for no reason. This kind of force is uncalled for especially on children and innocent bystanders.
Brooks, fielding questions at YouTube, also wrote that the officer removed his name tag.
On CNN Headline News, legal analyst Tom Fuentez, a former beat cop and FBI consultant, said that the other cops on the scene were clearly surprised by the officer’s behavior, and that he “clearly has no self-discipline, and it’s lucky that he didn’t shoot someone.”
Buzzfeed’s David Mack reports that teens told them that the incident began when adults at the party made racist comments and told “the black children to leave the area and return to “Section 8 [public] housing.”
Brooks, the 15-year-old who shot the YouTube video, told BuzzFeed News many students had arrived at the end-of-school celebration at the pool on guest passes.
“I think a bunch of white parents were angry that a bunch of black kids who don’t live in the neighborhood were in the pool,” said Brooks, who is white.
Grace Stone, a white 14-year-old, told BuzzFeed News that when she and her friends objected to the racist comments about public housing an adult woman then became violent.