WASHINGTON: An American police officer accused of using excessive force against black teenagers at a swimming pool party resigned on Wednesday _ four days after the incident.

The confrontation between police and teenagers in the Dallas suburb of McKinney is one of a series of recent incidents that have raised fresh questions about race relations in the United States.

A YouTube video, which showed officer Eric Casebolt pinning down an African-American girl, making somersaults and drawing his gun on unarmed teenagers, has gone viral on the internet, getting more than a million hits.

Police have killed eight African-American teenagers since August last year, when the shooting of a black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, started nationwide protests and riots.

After a similar death in Cleveland, Ohio, the justice department released a report in December, stating that the Cleveland police department had engaged in “excessive and unreasonable force” in hundreds of cases between 2010 and 2013.

The US media reported that from 1999 to 2011, African Americans have comprised 26 per cent of all police-shooting victims. Overall, the chances of police shooting an African-American youth are 4.5 times higher than people of other races and ages.

The seven-minute video, recorded on Saturday in McKinney, Texas, “documents a textbook example of white police harassing young African Americans and administering a level of force so excessive that it quickly spins a harmless gathering wildly out of control,” the Washington Post noted.

On Monday, hundreds of protesters marched through the streets of McKinney, carrying signs and placards urging police to change their attitude towards the African-American community.

The placards had slogans like “My Skin Color Is Not A Crime, Black Lives Matter and Protect Our Youths”.

The trouble started on Saturday when at least 12 black teenagers showed up at an end of school, swimming pool party at McKinney.

Organisers said they were not invited, but the teens showed copies of public invitations posted on social websites, saying explicitly that the party was open to all.

Dominique Alexander, a Dallas activist who helped organise Monday’s march, told the Dallas Morning News that the incident was “definitely a racially motivated thing” and said officer Casebolt “acted like he was a wild animal, just running around”.

In McKinney, police chief Greg Conley told reporters that Mr Casebolt, who was under investigation, had “resigned on his own will”. He called Mr Casebolt’s actions “indefensible”.

Published in Dawn, June 11th, 2015

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