A Georgia police officer has been accused of making racist statements to a woman during a traffic stop, telling her that the police officers “only shoot black people.”
Dash cam video shows the Cobb County officer, who has been identified as police Lt. Greg Abbott, standing outside a vehicle during a DUI traffic stop in July 2016.
The woman, who was a passenger in the vehicle, can be heard telling the officer that she did not want to put her hands down to reach for her phone because “I’ve just seen way too many videos of cops -.”
“But you’re not black,” he interrupted. “Remember, we only shoot black people. Yeah, we only kill black people, right? All of the videos you’ve seen, have you seen the black people get killed? You have.”
Cobb County police said that Chief Mike Register received information last week about the “inappropriate racial comments,” and the officer was placed on administrative duties during an internal investigation into the incident.
“No matter what the context, statements like these are unacceptable and are not indicative of the type of culture we are trying to facilitate here in the police department, as well as within the county,” the police chief said in a statement Thursday to The Washington Post.
ABC affiliate WSB, which obtained the video, reported that Register said the police department is “meeting this head-on and we’re going to deal with it.”
Abbott’s attorney, Lance LoRusso, said that Abbott, a 27-year veteran on the force, is cooperating with the investigation.
“His comments must be observed in their totality to understand their context,” LoRusso said in the statement. “He was attempting to de-escalate a situation involving an uncooperative passenger. In context, his comments were clearly aimed at attempting to gain compliance by using the passenger’s own statements and reasoning to avoid making an arrest.”
Suri Chadha Jimenez, an attorney who represented the driver in the DUI case, said that he had seen the video while preparing for court last summer and was “shocked” by what he had heard.
“I heard that, and I cringed. I had to replay it. I thought, ‘there’s no way,’ “ he said.
Jimenez said that he believes the officer was being sarcastic with the passenger for giving him “lip” but that it was still no excuse. “The reality is, to us minorities, there is a real fear when you’re pulled over,” he said. “He thought it was a joke, but it’s not a joke to many people.”
Jimenez, whose client’s case was resolved last month, said he’s glad the video has been exposed and hopes it will prompt the police department to provide training for its officers.