STK Official Statement Against Officer Eric Casebolt
PDF – Save the Kids Official Statement Against Eric Casebolt
Save the Kids Official Statement against the actions of officer eric casebolt at Pool party in mckinney, texas
June 7, 2015
Save the Kids (STK), a fully-volunteer national grass-roots organization with over ten chapters throughout the U.S., is dedicated to ending the incarceration, criminalization, surveillance, and policing of all youth. With the latest violence against Black youth by police in McKinney, Texas at a pool party, Save the Kids and partners are outraged, and we will not wait for the police or juvenile justice to fix the problems that they have created in the first place. Officer Eric Casebolt was out of control, unprofessional, and ran around after Black youth. He is nothing short of a community terror, but he is not a bad apple, but professionally trained by the U.S. Navy, a self-defense trainer, and Vice President of the local police union. So, he is doing exactly what one would expect. While Save the Kids does want Eric Casebolt fired, we also want to challenge the idea of police being a needed instrument within fostering peace. We argue that if we address poverty, mental health, and oppression, we would eliminate most of the crime/harm in our society, which can all be addressed through (1) community building, (2) transformative justice, and (3) social justice inclusive education. We need police to leave our youth alone and not view them as threats, curse at them, throw them around, put their knees in their backs, or point loaded weapons in their faces to resolve conflict, which is what Vice-President of local police union Eric Casebolt exactly did. He was not trained to resolve or transform conflict, but rather escalate and create it. You can’t build peace with a piece.
This statement is endorsed by Save the Kids, Poetry Behind the Walls, Wisdom Behind the Walls, Education Behind the Walls, Save the Kids Radio, Institute for Hip Hop Activism, The Journal of Hip Hop Studies, and Transformative Justice Journal.
