MCKINNEY, Texas — The white police officer who was video-recorded at a North Texas pool party pushing a black girl to the ground resigned Tuesday.
Officer David Eric Casebolt resigned from the McKinney Police Department after almost 10 years on the force, said his attorney, Jane Bishkin of Dallas.
A video recorded by another teenager and posted online showed him pushing a bikini-clad girl to the ground on Friday and brandishing his gun at other black teens after he and other officers responded to complaints about the pool party at a community-owned McKinney swimming pool.
McKinney Police Chief Greg Conley had placed the 41-year-old former Texas state trooper on administrative leave after the incident.
Bishkin declined to say where Casebolt is now and said the officer had received death threats. The attorney said she would release more information at a news conference Wednesday.
The incident has prompted criticism of the affluent suburb of McKinney north of Dallas, which is among the nation’s fastest growing cities, has highly regarded public schools and was ranked by one publication as America’s best place to live.
People who demonstrated this week at a McKinney school against the police response often used the city’s name in the same sentence as Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri – cities where use of force by police triggered widespread protests and violence.
The NAACP is asking the U.S. Department of Justice to review the procedures of the McKinney police force, stopping short of asking for a formal investigation.
Casebolt had been accused of excessive force in a 2007 arrest as part of a federal lawsuit that named him and other officers. The officers arrested Albert Brown Jr., who authorities say was found with crack cocaine during a traffic stop. Brown, who is black, accused the officers of forcibly searching him after pulling down his pants and slamming his head against a car hood. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2009.
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