Cell phone video of a suburban Dallas cop pinning a bikini-clad black teenager with his knee on her back and drawing a gun on a crowd of black teens has become the latest cause of the race grievance industry.  Last night “hundreds” of people peacefully demonstrated in that town, and local “civil rights leaders” are demanding a Justice Department investigation.  The officer in question, David Eric Casebolt, has been placed on administrative leave by the McKinney PD, which is conducting an investigation.

Those people, including a substantial share of the national media, who want to believe that police are racists eager to oppress blacks have striking visual evidence of what they see as unjust persecution of innocent little girls.  For them, the conclusion is obvious.  But the existing video seen by the public captures only a few minutes of a confrontation that had been developing for a few hours.  Unseen are the provocations that led to the officer to take his actions.

As with the George Zimmerman confrontation with Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, the “obvious” conclusions being drawn may well be diametrically opposite of the truth of the situation.  And, as with that incident, the blogger who goes by the name of Sundance at Conservative Treehouse has been researching the internet for evidence the well-paid celebrities on national TV and the journalists at “papers of record” are too busy (or biased) to consider.  If you want to understand what really happened, you must read this post in its entirety. Some brief excerpts:

The Origin – The woman who organized the event in McKinney, Texas is named Tatiana Rhodes (or Tatyana Rhodes). She is approximately 19-years-old; however, she retains a fake id and has began scrubbing most of her social media accounts, so her exact age is undetermined. Update: confirmed profile DOB 04/02/1995, so Tatiana Rhodes is 20.

Tatiana had been promoting a party via twitter under the hashtag name “Dime Piece Cookout” for approximately a month.  She planned the event at a sub-division called “Craig Ranch” in McKinney Texas.

The lovely Tatiana/Tatiyana is pictured from social media:

Here is the flyer for the party:

Critical to understanding the events is the nature of the pool, which has been rather obscure in the coverage I have seen.

The Craig Ranch subdivision has a neighborhood park and a gated pool and clubhouse for residents.  The pool and clubhouse is gated and a scan card is needed to gain access. (You an explore via google earth here)

The subdivision has a Homeowners Association (HOA) which regulates and controls the activities in/around the HOA swimming pool and clubhouse and has strict rules for use thereof.

So the party organizers were hijacking a private facility for their own use.  And the HOA rather strictly regulates the number of people who can use the facility for parties to 20, and insists that parties be concluded by 10 PM.  Both of those requirements were flagrantly flouted by the partiers.  Events began to escalate toward violence:

A teen friend of the event organizer (friends with Tatiana’s brother) is named, ironically, “Grace”, Grace Stone – approximately 14-years-old.

Young Grace Stone became angry because the mob was being told to leave the pool and clubhouse area; Grace was then backed up by her friend Tatiana (party organizer) in a confrontation with an adult resident at the pool.   Tatiana then attacked the adult female resident as shown in this video:

Which led to numerous phone calls to the police as the teen mob became ever more confrontational with a security officer and local residents. The mob refused to leave the area. The police arrived.

With hundreds of teens ransacking the area, the first officer on scene immediately called for back-up. Nine additional officers arrived to try and restore order.

The video below is what has driven the media frenzy, however it is approximately 23 minutes after the initial fight with Tatiana and the adult resident took place.

As Bob Price of Breitbart points out, local residents seem to be rather supportive of the police.

One resident, Benet Embry, a black man, posted on Facebook about the events leading up to the police call. “Look, I LIVE in this community and this ENTIRE incident is NOT racial at all,” Embry wrote. “A few THUGS spoiled a COMMUNITY event by fighting, jumping over fences into a PRIVATE pool, harassing and damaging property. Not EVERYTHING is about RACE. WE have other issues that NEED our attention other flights of made up make believe causes.”

In another post he is critical of media coverage of the incident. “I’ve never seen such irresponsible reporting and miss management of media resources in my life,” he said.

Another McKinney resident, Bryan Gestner, posted on Facebook, “This was a Twitter party that turned into a mob event. Jumping pool fence. Assaulting 2 security guards, attacking a mother with three little girls. The video doesn’t show everything.” He continued saying the kids were drinking and “smoking weed” and they would not listen to any of the adults around the pool.

“This isn’t about race,” he continued. “This is about outside kids invading our neighborhood and had no respect for authority or the residents here. I have a target on my back now and I have been threatened by these punks that they are gonna shoot up my house when all I did was try to control the mob and actually tended to the girl and the boy that had a bloody lip.”

Paul Mirengoff of Powerline notes the seriousness of what the video captured:

When a police officer uses physical force against a teenage girl and draws a gun on the unarmed, the matter is serious. That’s why Casebolt has been placed on leave, with pay, while his actions are investigated.

But:

It looks to me like the threat to Casebolt’s safety was minimal at best by the time he went for the gun. The nearby officers seem to have felt the same way. They tried to grab Casebolt before giving chase to the fleeing African-American males.

As for Becton, was Casebolt was rougher with her than he needed to be? Possibly.

But it’s unrealistic to expect perfect calibration in the use of force. In the absence of gratuitous acts such as punching her after she, and assuming that Becton didn’t suffer injury, we shouldn’t be quick to second-guess Casebolt’s level of force.

Nor, in all events, should we be quick to assume racism on the part of the police or the people who were holding the pool party. Folks don’t like it when their parties are crashed by noisy teenagers. Police officers don’t like it when teenage party-crashers refuse to obey their orders. This is true regardless of the teenagers’ race.

I suspect the national media will have as little interest in the background of this incident as they had in Trayvon Martin’s criminal history and drug use.  If the McKinney Police Department does not discipline Officer Casebolt, we may be seeing more marches ahead, though an outbreak of Ferguson- (and Baltimore-) style violence seems unlikely.  But there will undoubtedly be more flashpoints ahead for the grievance industry to exploit.

It’s too bad the police did not have body cameras.  It’s time for that promised federal money to be spent on equipping every officer in the United States.