HAMILTON, Ga. (WRBL) — The City of Hamilton, Georgia’s chief of police resigned last week and another officer was terminated following bodycam footage that shows the two using racial slurs.
The Hamilton City Council asked for the resignation of Chief Gene Allmond and Sgt. John Brooks on Jan. 25 after they discovered an inappropriate bodycam video of them recorded hours before a Black Lives Matter March in Hamilton in June 2020.
A part-time city employee was checking if the body camera was functional on Jan. 25. He found the footage and brought it to the attention of the Mayor’s Assistant, Buddy Walker, who then called in Mayor Julie Brown, the City Council, and City Attorney Ron Iddins.
The video is about 6 minutes long and shows the two are unaware speaking about a Black Lives Matter March that took place later in the day, the shooting of Chris Bridges in Atlanta, and more.
The two policemen use racial slurs, and if you watch the footage, you’ll hear them discussing slavery and speaking negatively about the Black population.
“I don’t own no slaves…” said one of the two officers talking on the body camera footage. “Now we give them food and they don’t want to work.”
According to Walker, nobody on the Council was able to watch the full video due to “how ugly it gets.”
“After reviewing the footage, I think it speaks for itself. The city, its failure to take action at that point and time would have been inexplicable,” said Iddins. “It had to be done.”
Reaction from Mayor Brown was similar in sentiment:
“We wanted them off the force because we don’t want that kind of ugliness here in Hamilton,” said Brown. “Race, I don’t think has been an issue here. At least it hasn’t been in the 37 years I’ve been here, and we just didn’t want that, especially now in this day and age we want more unity. The whole country needs more unity, we need to heal, so we didn’t want anything stopping that.”