ATLANTA (CN) – A Cobb County, Georgia, police lieutenant was fired Thursday after the release of dashboard-camera video that showed him at a traffic stop telling a white woman “we only shoot black people.”
Lt. Greg Abbott, a 28-year police veteran who is white, sent an email announcing his retirement as Cobb Police Chief Mike Register announced his termination.
The footage from July 2016 was first shown on Atlanta news station Channel 2 Action News Wednesday night. In it, Abbott can be seen talking to a white female passenger who expressed concern about reaching for her cellphone because “I’ve just seen way too many videos of cops …”
Abbott interrupted the woman: “But you’re not black. Remember, we only shoot black people. Yeah. We only kill black people. All the videos you’ve seen, have you seen the black people get killed?”
The release of the video comes in the wake of several high-profile police-involved shootings in which young black men were killed.
“I wish Lt. Abbott well,” Register said at a press conference. “But I think that was very inappropriate for any police office to say that, but especially one of our leaders in the department.”
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