America Reacts to McKinney Police Officer Pulling a Gun on Unarmed Teenagers
This weekend, a video surfaced on YouTube of a White police officer brutally grabbing a Black teenage girl by the neck and pushing her towards the ground, then drawing his gun and pointing it at two unarmed Black teenagers—who understandably turned and ran—at a community pool in McKinney, Texas. The original YouTube video, which has more than 350,000 views at this point, describes what happened: “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.”
The video itself is disturbing on a number of levels, but particularly with the current climate of police brutality in this country it comes as a depressing hammer blow to any idea of progress or reform. Today, the McKinney Police Department announced that they had suspended Corporal Eric Casebolt for his role in the incident. Over the weekend, a number of rappers took to social media to share their thoughts on the video and its fallout. Watch the original video below as well as rappers’ social media reactions.
