We enter the circle of controversy the moment when the white Georgia police officer, Greg Abbott, tells a white woman he has stopped on suspicion of DUI to use her phone. She is scared for her life and says: “I just don’t want to put my hands down. I’ve just seen way too many videos of cops [shooting people].” His response:
But you’re not black. Remember? We only kill black people. Yeah. We only kill black people, right? All the videos you’ve seen, have you seen [white] people get killed?
Abbott claims he said these racist words to calm the hysterical white woman and the situation—and maybe it worked. Maybe she thought of all those social media videos of cops killing people, and realized that officer was right. She’s white. She’s fine. She should take a deep breath because she will live to see another day.
Abbott’s boss, the Cobb County Police Chief Mike Register, however, sees things differently. He thinks that “no matter what context it was said, it shouldn’t have been said.” Abbott on Thursday announced he will leave the department after his supervisors said he’d be fired.
