A recent video of a Texas police officer throwing a 14-year-old black girl to the ground and drawing his firearm at a crowd of onlookers has outraged media across the country, and brought together voices from the left, right and libertarian side of the press.
But for Fox News, there appears to be more to this story than is revealed in the amateur footage of the incident, as Fox’s talent has dedicated a significant amount to air-time this week to exploring why Eric Casebolt did what he did.
“He had told her to leave, and she continued to linger,” Fox’s Megyn Kelly said this week, referring to the girl that Casebolt pinned to the ground with his knee. “When a cop tells you to leave, get out.”
Kelly added that she was not excusing the former police officer. Rather, she said, she wanted to add some context to the event.
Earlier, as footage of the incident played during a panel discussion of the incident, Fox’s Martha MacCallum suggested that Casebolt may have feared that one of the teens was about to pull a gun on him. So maybe that’s why the former police officer drew first?
Sean Hannity also had thoughts after he viewed the footage, telling his viewers this week that, “When I look at this video, when we slow down this video, the police officer did not pull out the gun on this girl in the bikini here. It was two young men. It seems as if they are provoking him.”
Fox’s take was notably different from those in other media outlets. Many others were quick to denounce former police officer Eric Casebolt, who tendered his resignation Tuesday after being put on administrative leave.
“What was the police officer in McKinney thinking?” asked Kathleen Parker in a Washington Post op-ed.
The libertarian news site Reason argues that, “We should demand better behavior from the people who are paid to keep us safe.”
National Review Online published an op-ed suggesting that there could be reasonable explanations for the police officer’s behavior. But even that response ended with, “I’m open to the possibility that facts may emerge that will justify Corporal Casebolt’s actions, but I can’t imagine what they might be.”
Fox’s effort to explore the rationale behind the former police officer’s behavior did little to sway the opinion of McKinney Police Chief Greg Conley.
“Our policies, our training, our practice, do not support his actions,” Conley said Tuesday. “He came into the call out of control, and as the video shows, was out of control during the incident.”
Conley added that the problem appears to be isolated as Casebolt was the only one of a dozen police officers to behave in an irresponsible manner.
“I had 12 officers on the scene, and 11 of them performed according to their training,” he said. “They did an excellent job.”
Casebolt and other police officers were called Friday to deal with a rowdy situation at an end-of-school-year party at an admission-restricted pool.
One account alleges that fights broke out between the partygoers after two white women shouted racially charged insults at a group of African-American teenagers, prompting fights. Another account alleges that many of the African-American teens who showed up to the party were uninvited, rowdy and harassing the neighborhood’s residents.
“[T]he neighbors or the neighborhood did not call the police because this was an African-American party or whatever the situation is,” said resident Benet Embry, who is black. “This was not a racially-motivated event — at all.”
