Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Police are summoned to a swimming pool where emotions have spun out of control and end up facing allegations of police brutality and racial targeting. If you’re thinking McKinney, Texas, you haven’t heard this one.
This latest incident occurred some 1,200 miles northeast, in the town of Fairfield, Ohio. Last Tuesday, police there responded to reports of fighting at the Fairfield Aquatic Center. According to the Journal-News:
The fight began … after some individuals at the city-run pool became disorderly, according to Fairfield police Officer Doug Day. One of the city’s park rangers was also on site, tried unsuccessfully to break up the brawl, and called police.
According to a police report, the juveniles had been asked to leave the pool due to their behavior. The mother of the juveniles, Krystal Dixon, 33, of Cincinnati, “aggressively confronted pool staff,” the report said. She was also asked to leave.
Dixon, the article further notes, “at one point … called to a juvenile to get a Taser from her purse.” She was arrested and charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. A video of the confrontation was captured on cell phone by a bystander:
That was last week. Yesterday, the other shoe dropped. According to a second Journal-News article, Dixon — who is black — is claiming that race was a factor in the police response and that excessive force was used.
There’s more. A member of Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, one Bishop Bobby Hilton, appeared at a news conference yesterday where he claimed police broke the jaw and three ribs of one of the juveniles involved. Police say this is the first they have heard of those injuries. Hilton further stated:
I do my best to stand with law enforcement. But if they’re going to be nasty enough to put something out like this across the nation, I’m going to stand with the truth. This angers me. It affects not only this family. It affects kids all over this county, all over this state, and all over the nation.
But Fairfield Police Chief Mike Dickey insists, “This is not a question of race. This is a question of behavior.” He added:
When individuals attack police officers, the officers are obligated to defend themselves. That they didn’t use any weapons shows the restraint they used.
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