As Fox News played footage of hundreds of people protesting a police officer who used brutal force against teenagers at a pool party in McKinney, Texas, Megyn Kelly defended the cop.
Kelly focused on the scenes of Cpl. Eric Casebolt pinning 15-year-old Dajerria Becton to the ground, caught on video by witnesses.
Kelly claimed that while she was not defending Casebolt, Becton was not completely blameless either.
“He had told her to leave, and she continued to linger. When a cop tells you to leave, get out,” Kelly said on Monday.
Her guests, former Los Angeles Police detective Mark Furhman and radio host Richard Fowler, were not as forgiving.
Furhman criticized how Casebolt handled the incident.
“You’re focusing on control, but arrest of one person ties your hands, and now you’re completely useless to the rest of the crowd or the other officers,” he declared. “He certainly did not have control of her. It looked kind of bad, the way he was attempting to get her on the ground.”
“I’m sure he didn’t know she was 14 at the time,” Kelly answered. “Maybe he did, we can’t assume it. But now we know, and she looked like a young woman. And it’s brutal.”
Fowler said, “Clearly he pulled out his gun for no reason. Clearly they were all unarmed.”
Kelly also asked her guests if making the incident into a “race thing” was reasonable.
The group consisted mostly of black teenagers, and the 15-year-old witness who filmed the video, Brandon Brooks, told KDAF-TV that he believed police did not use force on him because he is white.
Furhman — who Kelly noted often defends cops who exhibit similar behavior — agreed that it was a stretch to say that race played a role in the incident. He argued that black and white residents had called for police at the pool.
“The video is rather narrow in its scope, so we don’t know that,” he said. “We don’t know those facts yet. I think it’s kind of a leap to go to a racial profiling at a graduation, beginning of summer pool party.”
Fowler offered that an issue other than race may be at stake.
“Race aside, Megyn, I think to watch a woman being handled like that by a guy who’s two times her size made me totally sick to my stomach,” Fowler said after seeing footage showing Casebolt pinning Becton to the ground.
Other Fox hosts and contributors have also defended the Texas cop, including Brit Hume, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, Bo Dietl, Tom Shillue, Steve Doocy, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Brian Kilmeade.
Emily Leayman is an intern at the Washington Examiner.
