MONDAY, JUNE 8 This week of diabolical doctors, self-spoofing homophobes, and surreal twists in America’s ongoing problems with race kicked off in the North Texas town of McKinney, where a seven-minute cell-phone video instigated a national backlash that devoured the first half of the week. The scene: a community pool in McKinney, where last Friday evening a resident called police to report the group of kids who were allegedly using the pool without permission. What happened next was caught on video: 41-year-old McKinney police officer Eric Casebolt—one of a dozen cops dispatched to the scene—is confronted by a 14-year-old girl in a bikini, who Casebolt grabs by the hair and throws to the ground, kneeling on her back and drawing his gun on kids who rush to help her. For comment, we turn to Brandon Brooks, the 15-year-old boy who attended the pool party and shot the video viewed round the world. “I was one of the only white people in the area when that was happening,” Brooks told CW33 NewsFix. “You can see in part of the video where he tells us to sit down, and he kinda like skips over me and tells all my African American friends to go sit down… When he pulled his gun, my heart dropped. As soon as he pulled out his gun, I thought he was going to shoot that kid. That was very scary.” After three days of widespread outcry, tomorrow McKinney’s police chief, Greg Conley, will denounce Casebolt’s actions as “indefensible” and announce Casebolt’s you-can’t-fire-me-I-quit resignation from the McKinney Police Department…
