DALLAS — McKinney Police Chief Greg Conley condemned as “indefensible” the actions of Eric Casebolt, an officer who resigned Tuesday after a video of Casebolt physically confronting teenagers at a pool party attracted national attention.
Conley said at a news conference late Tuesday that Casebolt, 41, resigned “on his own will” while under investigation and will get to keep his pension and benefits.
“Our policies, our training and our practice do not support his actions,” Conley said. “He came into the call out of control and, as the video shows, was out of control during the incident.”
“I had 12 officers on the scene and 11 of them performed according to their training,” Conley added.
The chief says the investigation will take some time to determine whether Casebolt, who had been on paid leave since the video went viral over the weekend, should be criminally charged.
The department saw the viral video for the first time on Saturday afternoon, Conley says.
When Casebolt resigned Tuesday, he didn’t apologize or make any statement. “It was just a simple resignation: ‘I resign,’ ” Conley said.
Mayor Brian Loughmiller called the incident “not indicative of McKinney as a whole.”
Loughmiller urges citizens to help the city “move forward in a positive manner.”
“We have to get past this,” he said, adding that leaders should ask themselves, “What can we learn from this and how do we continue to build our community and make it stronger?”
“I do believe we should hold our staff and our employees accountable,” Loughmiller said, but declined to comment on whether Casebolt should be charged.
“As a father myself I was sorry this incident occurred,” the mayor says.
McKinney police say they have dropped the charges against Adrian Martin, an 18-year-old who was the sole person arrested in the pool party incident.
In an arrest report, police said Martin ignored Casebolt’s commands to “stay back” while the officer was trying to detain another person. The report also accuses Martin of running from another officer for two to three minutes before he was caught.
In an interview earlier Tuesday, Martin said he did not try to interfere with police and only wanted to reassure the 15-year-old girl thrown to the ground that he would call her mother.
Martin said he fled because he was scared of the officer pointing a gun at him. Martin said his thoughts were “what anyone else would fear: Am I going to get shot?”
