A white police office announced his resignation after body camera footage showed him threaten to shoot a black motorist if he took his hands off the steering wheel.
Officer Keith Dowd, who works in Columbus, Mississippi, made the announcement after a citizens’ committee reviewed the video and unanimously recommended he be fired.
The 48-year-old patrolman submitted a letter late Thursday saying he will resign on Monday.
He was initially suspended from the job with pay after the driver, 20-year-old Joshua Hibbler, filed a complaint.
Officer Keith Dowd (left), who works in Columbus, Mississippi, announced his resignition after a citizens’ committee reviewed a video of him threatening to shoot black motorist Joshua Hibbler (right), and unanimously recommended he be fired
Calls for his firing came when the Commercial Dispatch obtained the video through a public records request and posted it online earlier this week.
After the video became public he was accused of racial profiling.
The video, taken on August 18, shows Dowd repeatedly asking whether Hibbler had been smoking marijuana, claiming that he is a DUI and drug interdiction expert.
Hibbler responded by calling the the officer ‘sir’ and saying he had smoked marijuana in the past but had been smoking a cigar that day.
Dowd can be clearly heard becoming more and more enraged as he questions the motorist about where he works, where he lives, and who owns the car.
He also refused to believe Hibbler when he said he’d never been arrested or pulled over for anything in the past.
‘This is my first time being inside this situation. I swear. My record (is) clean. I’m a good person,’ Hibbler said on the video.
Dowd replied: ‘No, you’re not a good person. You smoke weed and you’re running through city streets twice the dang speed limit.’
The video, taken on August 18, shows Dowd repeatedly asking whether Hibbler had been smoking marijuana, claiming that he is a DUI and drug interdiction expert
In the footage he can also be heard repeatedly telling Hibbler to keep his hands on the steering wheel before saying ‘I can empty a magazine into the car’
The officer told Hibbler multiple times to stop reaching down and to keep his hands on the steering wheel.
‘Next time you reach, it’s going to get ugly,’ Dowd said.
‘Because you’re kind of appearing to me to be the twitchy type of person who’s done something wrong or you’ve got something. Listen to me.
‘So, all this reaching and grabbing, whatever – I guarantee you, before you think you can do something, I can empty a magazine into the car.’
Dowd eventually let Hibbler go with a warning and no ticket.
Hibbler told the Columbus Dispatch the encounter made his mind – describing himself as ‘nervous and sweating’.
‘I got to thinking about all those situations of police brutality and I thought, “No, I don’t want to be another one of them,”‘ he explained.
‘I don’t know what would’ve happened if I had said something [non-compliant].’