Posted on 06/10/2015 5:57:53 AM PDT by Kaslin
One of the most unfortunate by-products of the McKinney, Texas, pool party aftermath is the lost opportunity for a constructive evaluation of police performance.
The now-infamous video says vastly different things to different people, but one thing stands out as a resounding majority view: Something went very wrong as an already tense situation was exacerbated by the language and behaviors of one police officer, Eric Casebolt, who resigned Tuesday.
So we are left to evaluate the reactions that led up this, which have ranged from measured to presumptuous to downright reckless.
In the era of Ferguson and Baltimore and the fraudulent narratives of “hands up, don’t shoot,” we are descending into an abyss where thoughtful, objective assessment of police actions is nearly extinct. How many milliseconds did it take before the first race-baiters rushed to affix the McKinney pool party story to a legacy of lynchings and Jim Crow?
Is this our eternal fate now? It was surely jarring to see this girl subjected what seems to be unnecessary manhandling by a police officer. But because he is white and she is black, the presumption was reflexively made that this was an incident of race-motivated police brutality.
No one should be blind to evidence of police racism if it actually arises. But nor should such evidence be concocted artificially to stoke a political agenda.
It would have been challenging enough to discern just when things went wrong, the moment the officer lost control and what he might have done better. In any controversy over police interactions with the public, that process can inform both police and citizens, leading to greater trust.
But such progress is hindered by hand-wringing proclamations that the pool party response was part of some deep societal evil that should drop us to our knees in collective shame.
Of course racism still exists. The tragedy of overreactions is that they impede what should be our shared effort to identify it when it actually arises. Every “Black Lives Matter” rally following an event with no driving racial motive fuels skepticism and a muted empathy when voices are lifted at the discovery of genuine racist misbehavior.
Behind closed doors, the officer and his superiors must have covered the rough road that lay ahead, some of it warranted because of his actions, some of it in anticipation of guaranteed troublemaking by hotheads with axes to grind.
We ask cops to display near-superhuman poise and professionalism when chaos is exploding around them. The good news is they virtually all succeed.
When one of them fails, a consequence is appropriate. But let history record that this officer’s resignation was due to a serious lapse in professionalism and poise, not because of come contrived plotline that he was a bad racist seed that needed to be purged. Opportunists are out for every pound of cop flesh these days, and they will spin that narrative any time they can.
Any assessment of events in McKinney should be based on what actually happened, free of agenda-driven quests to make cops look bad in general or to malign a community in an effort to stoke false imagery of a society still mired in tensions of decades past.
One of the most valuable, even-handed quotes this week was from a woman who spoke with a local TV station. Lamonica Birmingham, who is black, lives just down the street from the pool. “We pay HOA dues to use that pool,” she told a reporter. “So you can’t come out here and throw unauthorized events. I do not, however…agree with how the police officer handled the situation.”
Imagine that. A measured grasp of two concepts at the same time— the proper concern that led residents to call police, and an equally proper wish to thoughtfully scrutinize what unfolded.
Thank you, ma’am.
Derbyshire needs to create “rules for cops.”
maybe “rules for pools”
how to make society proactive in keeping these scenes from happening?? - streets are full of out of control kids and young adults.
EVENTS! Sounds like one mother was running a pimp pool party.
Kaslin,
What that lady said is spot on.
The cop lost his temper; a far cry from Ferguson & Baltimore.
From the article:
“...One of the most valuable, even-handed quotes this week was from a woman who spoke with a local TV station. Lamonica Birmingham,who is black, lives just down the street from the pool. “We pay HOA dues to use that pool,” she told a reporter. “So you can’t come out here and throw unauthorized events. I do not,however…agree with how the police officer handled the situation.” ...”
Question:
Are the rabble rousers going to go after her job like they did Benet’s?
still waitin’ for someone to interview the two security guards that were assaulted and eyewitnesses to the criminal actions of the crap rap attendees.
Then the next time something like this happens, call a reporter.
The constructive evaluation of police performance in McKenney is this: eleven officers handled the situation peacefully, using their training, and abiding by police guidelines. The situation was defused. The unruly crowd was cleared. And order was restored. The actions of one officer should not overshadow the performance of the other eleven. But it will, by those looking for any excuse to be offended.
The only racism was in the reaction to the incident. There ain’t a soul (other than perhaps Casebolt) who can say with certainty that there was any racial consideration at play in the response to a mob of teens trespassing at a private facility.
And everything in the wake of the incident has been race-baiting foolishness.
Why was all reporting done starting with the 7 minute video? What about the desperate 911 calls reporting security guards and others being assaulted by BLACK perps crashing a pool party.
Perhaps because the lamestream media did not want the truth out.
Because it doesn’t fit the narrative
Go find the big post on this at Conservative Treehouse. They have reasonably well-documented the (almost certainly unapproved and in violation of HOA rules) party next to the pool that this mom and her daughter advertized on social media, which led directly to the pool incident.
fighting real racism is NOT the goal,
as the title of this piece assumes.
The issue is never the issue - the issue is always the revolution.
As I maintained on another thread, it is right to be concerned about excessive force, but the people who are crying the loudest about the excessive force (and their USEFUL IDIOTS even on this very forum) are the VERY people who are deliberately PUSHING these situations to the level where something is going to happen.
This is Alinsky 101, and there are too many people who don’t understand this, and even though they insist (sometimes VERY disingenously) that they don’t support the actions of the people who are exacerbating these types of issues or the people who are actually doing it, THEY ARE INDEED PERFORMING THE ROLE OF USEFUL IDIOTS TO THE ALINSKYITES.
We fully expect liberals to fall in lockstep with Alinskyites because that is all they are capable of, yet we unexpectedly get morons on FR who buy right into it. And they become Useful Idiots to them, and as such, are in league with them.
Going to be quite the fun when all the police decide to quit answering calls or even come to work.
Thanks for the link. Of course the drive-by media will never report the truth
“Imagine that. A measured grasp of two concepts at the same time— the proper concern that led residents to call police, and an equally proper wish to thoughtfully scrutinize what unfolded.
Thank you, ma’am.”
A concept clearly lacking at FR on this topic.
That photo is so “Racis!”
There is a man standing in a shadow in front of a sign and it makes him look like he is in blackface makeup.
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