A west Georgia police chief and an officer have reportedly been forced from their department after body camera footage taken before a Black Lives Matter protest in their area last year captured the two men defending slavery and using racial slurs.
Hamilton Police Chief Gene Allmond resigned and Patrolman John Brooks was fired last week after the footage was unearthed by a city employee who was checking to see if the body camera was functional, local station WRBL reported.
The video, taken in June 2020, appears to capture the uniformed men standing outside the police department and talking about a BLM march scheduled to be in Hamilton later that day. In their conversation, they appear to reference the then-recent fatal shooting of 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks, who was shot twice in the back by an Atlanta police officer after allegedly grabbing an officer’s Taser during a field sobriety test. His shooting death fueled ongoing nationwide protests against racial discrimination and police violence.
“I don’t own no slaves. My folks didn’t own no slaves. What are we talking about, 200 fucking years ago?” one of the men says in the video.
“I’m sure there were a lot of them mistreated, I don’t have no doubt about that,” the man says at another point. “But for the most part, it seems to me like, they furnished them a house to live in. They furnished them clothes to put on their back. They furnished them food to put on their table and all they had to do was fucking work. And now we give ’em all those things and don’t have to fucking work.”
“That’s it. That’s it,” the other man responds in apparent agreement.
At another point the two men, using a racial slur, discuss who they would rather have sex with: Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms or voting rights activist Stacey Abrams.
Both men were asked to resign or face termination after the footage was reviewed by the city’s mayor and city council. Allmond resigned while Brooks was terminated, WTVM reported.
Attempts to reach the police department and mayor’s office for comment were not immediately successful Sunday.
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