Screen grab of the video.
“Remember, we only shoot black people,” a Georgia police officer tells a woman in a video which has now gone viral. The dashboard cam video shows the Cobb County police officer making the controversial remark standing by a car which had been, moments ago, pulled up alongside a road. He asks the woman in the front passenger seat to use the phone in her lap to make a phone call. She says she doesn’t want to.
“OK I just don’t want to put my hands down,” the woman tells the officer, adding that she has seen “way too many videos of cops,” before trailing off.
In response, the police officer says, “But you’re not black. Remember, we only shoot black people. Yeah. We only kill black people, right? All the videos you’ve seen, have you seen any white people get killed?”
The officer in the video, identified as Lieutenant Greg Abbott, retired on Thursday after authorities sought his dismissal. Earlier on the same day, Cobb County Police Chief Mike Register said he knows Abbott to be “honorable” but that authorities would begin the process of firing him. “I don’t know what’s in his heart but I certainly know what came out of his mouth, and it’s inexcusable,” Register said at a news conference.
In recent years, numerous videos dash cams, body-worn cameras and cellphones have shown unarmed black people being killed by US police officers, leading to debates about racial discrimination and excessive use of force in the criminal justice system.
Watch the video here:
