Ex-cop's attorney says stress, not race, was behind Texas pool party response


An attorney for Eric Casebolt said Wednesday that the former McKinney, Texas, police officer was not targeting minorities when he threw a black teenage girl to the ground and drew his gun outside a pool party. The lawyer, Jane Bishkin, said Casebolt "allowed his emotions to get the better of him" after responding to two suicide calls earlier in the day, and that he was sorry. An attorney for the 15-year-old that Casebolt subdued said she appreciated the apology but that stress was no excuse for Casebolt's actions.
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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.
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