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'The Words Just Rolled Out Of Their Mouths': Ga. Police Chief, Officer Resign After Body Cam Captured Racist Conversation
Former Hamilton Police Chief Gene Allmond and another officer were filmed uttering racial slurs and downplaying slavery prior to a Black Lives Matter rally in June.
Two Georgia police officers have resigned after body camera footage surfaced of them using racist language before patrolling a Black Lives Matter protest last year.
Hamilton Police Chief Gene Allmond and patrolman John Brooks, who used the N-word, made bigoted comments regarding slavery, Stacey Abrams, and other racially charged police shootings, were filmed outside the city’s police department last June.
Both men have left their posts after a recording of their inflammatory conversation was made public in January, WTVM reported.
"I don't own no slaves," Allmond said in the body camera recording. "My folks didn't own no slaves. What are we talking about, 200 [expletive] years ago?”
He went on to say: "I don't know if this has any merit back in the slave times, but I'm sure there was a lot of them mistreated, I don't have no doubt about that. 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 (expletive) work."
The former patrolman appears to agree with his superior in the recording.
"And now we give them all those things and they don't have to [expletive] work," Brooks responded.
The footage was unexpectedly uncovered by a city employee examining body camera memory cards.
“I’m not sure if he was stupid enough — obviously he was stupid enough — not to know it was still working and that he still had it on,” Buddy Walker, an assistant to Mayor Julie Brown, told the New York Times. “The words just rolled out of their mouths. There was no hesitation.”
Days earlier, Rayshard Brooks, a Black man, had been shot and killed by police in an Atlanta Wendy’s drive-thru parking lot during an altercation with police during an arrest for alleged drunk driving. His death further fanned the flames of nationwide protests first sparked by George Floyd’s police killing in Minneapolis weeks before.
City officials confirmed Allmond stepped down on Jan. 25.
“Everybody knew what had to be done,” Walker added. “It was not one of our proudest days.”
