Given the sheer number of videos showing police using force to subdue citizens that have circulated in the past year and beyond, you’d be hard pressed to remember them all. One of the more high-profile videos of an officer throwing a black teenager to the ground outside a pool party is going to be making the rounds again. Teen Dajerria Becton is suing Eric Casebolt (the officer who threw her to the ground), the city of McKinney, Texas, and the McKinney Police Department for $5 million based on the incident that occurred in June of 2015.
As quick refresher: Becton was at a house part in a suburb of Dallas when the cops were called. As the teenagers milled around outside and began to disperse, one particularly overzealous cop targeted Becton, pulling her hair, dragging her along the ground and then kneeling on her prone body. The lawsuit claims both physical and psychological damages. According Becton’s attorney Kim Cole, the teen suffered injuries to her neck and back due to the incident, and continued to deal with a “ridiculous amount of cyberbullying” from racists long after she had physically recovered.
Meanwhile, an attorney for the officer seen in the video remains confident he will “successfully” defend his client. Casebolt resigned from the police force soon after the video went viral. The city of McKinney and its police department are named in the suit for failing to adequately train their officers. Both parties have strongly denied those allegations.
The attorney for the teenager didn’t want to have to file a lawsuit against the city, but was forced to after McKinney city turned down a $2.5 million agreement for damages. Watch video of the original incident below.
[via WaPo]
