McKinney protesters rally against police attack on pool party
_Condemn police violence, racism _
McKinney, TX – About 300 protesters gathered at the McKinney police station, June 8, to condemn the police violence shown on the now infamous McKinney swimming pool video. About 20 people spoke, discussing police violence, the police focus on the black teenagers, and the racist neighbors that responded to a pool party that had black guests by calling the police.
One speaker said that this was not the America she had grown up in. But another speaker, Noe Padierna, responded: “I'm afraid it is the America we all grew up in. Police violence isn't new. In 1973, Dallas police murdered my cousin Santos Rodriguez, a 12-year-old, because they falsely believed he had broken into a vending machine. They sat him in a police car and made him play Russian roulette. This has been going on for a long time, and it is going to keep going on until we stop it.”
The protest was organized by the Olinka Green Defense Committee and supported by Mothers Against Police Brutality.
A separate protest took place near the site of the incident, starting at an elementary school and marched to the pool itself.
The latest word is that the officer seen pulling a gun and kneeling on a teenage girl in the video, McKinney Police Corporal Eric Casebolt, has resigned. But organizers say further protests are planned.