Tag Archives: McKinney Police Department

Frenship teacher pops off, loses job

It just had to be a teacher from a school in West Texas to spout off about the incident in McKinney.

The teacher was fired from the Frenship Independent School District for suggesting in a social media post that perhaps we ought to re-segregate our public schools to avoid future melees like the one that erupted in McKinney, the one that got the police officer into so much trouble after he roughed up a bikini-clad 14-year-old girl.

http://www.everythinglubbock.com/story/d/story/frenship-teacher-fired-over-imnotracist-post-on-fa/34216/f-pcZK7edkG8vHHlyFVANg

That didn’t set well with Karen Fitzgibbons, a teacher at Bennett Elementary School, who said the officer, Eric Casebolt, shouldn’t have quit. “The blacks are the ones causing the problems and this ‘racial tension,” Fitzgibbons wrote on Facebook.

Alrighty.

But there’s more. “I’m almost to the point of wanting them all segregated on one side of town so they can hurt each other and leave the innocent people alone,” Fitzgibbons also said. Her posts included the hashtag #imnotracist.

You got that last part? She says she’s not a racist. You know, my experience suggests that when people have to say they aren’t racist, well, that suggests something else.

The story is well-known. Casebolt responded to a pool party fracas that got out of hand. He wrestled the girl in the bikini to the ground, then pulled his service pistol on some boys who had come close to the action; the boys weren’t armed.

And, oh yes, the kids are mostly black; Casebolt is white.

Here we go … again.

Then a teacher from out here among us in West Texas shoots off her proverbial mouth.

Nice going, Ms. Fitzgibbons.

 

Call him a ‘former police officer’

Eric Casebolt no longer patrols the streets of McKinney, Texas, on behalf of the McKinney Police Department.

He quit today, just a few days after being video recorded roughing up a 14-year-old bikini-clad girl in a disturbance that erupted from a pool party.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/texas-officer-seen-in-viral-video-has-resigned-police-chief/ar-BBkTiMU

How does a pool party melee become cause for someone to give up a career for which he once was cited for excellence? It’s because the officer overreacted to the max when the kids didn’t do as he instructed him. His muscling of the girl to the ground was bad enough; then he drew his service pistol out on unarmed boys who had joined the ruckus.

Oh yes. Most of the kids are black; the officer is white.

One blogger, writing for the Dallas Morning News, wondered if such an incident would have occurred had the girl been a “blue-eyed blonde.”

Does this end the episode? Probably not. Casebolt likely won’t be prosecuted for any crime, as no one was injured in the disturbance. However, the eyes of the community will be focused sharply on how officers react in the future.

Let us chalk up yet another incident — and add it to the list of reasons local police must build trust in the communities they swear to “protect and serve.”