A Georgia police officer is under fire after he allegedly told a black man he had pulled over: "I don't care about your people."
A Georgia police officer is under fire after he allegedly told a black man he had pulled over: “I don’t care about your people.”
Cobb County Police Officer Maurice Lawson stopped school teacher Brian Baker, 33, who was driving on Mableton Parkway about 2 a.m. November 16 for allegedly speeding and failing to stay in his lane.
After receiving two tickets, Baker asked if he could leave.
In video footage captured on the officer’s dash cam, Lawson, who is white, repeated the man’s question over and over, saying: “Leave. Go away. Go to Fulton County. I don’t care about your people, man, go.”
Baker, who told WSB-TV the officer’s comments left him “dumbfounded,” questioned Lawson about what he said.
“My people? My people?” Baker said.
“I said Fulton County,” Lawson responded, eventually saying: “Do you want to step out and talk to me?”
“Why do you need me to step out of the car?” Baker asked.
“Go back to Fulton County, sir,” Lawson said.
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After Baker pulled away, Lawson looked at two unidentified officers and said: “I lose my cool, man, every time. Why do I got to deal with (stuff) like that. This is the (expletive) America we live in, ain’t it?”
Baker filed an internal affairs complaint after the incident.
The police department issued Baker an apology, a CCPD spokesman confirmed to INSIDE EDITION.
The letter, which was reportedly sent from Captain J.D. Adcock to Baker on November 24, said Lawson violated the department’s code of conduct and his conduct would not be tolerated.
“Officer Lawson’s conduct as he spoke with you does not meet our high standards, has brought discredit to the department and himself, and is not now nor ever will be tolerated,” a copy of the letter obtained by myACJ.com read.
“I want to take this opportunity to personally apologize to you for the conduct that you experienced and want you to know that we have taken the extraordinary step of using formal discipline, enhanced training, and reassignment in an effort to prevent similar incidents,” the letter continued.
A CCPD spokesman confirmed to IE that Lawson had been reassigned to a new police precinct pending an ongoing investigation.
Baker’s attorney said the two tickets he received were reduced to warnings.
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This is not the first time Lawson has been accused of inappropriate behavior toward a black person.
Cobb County Commissioner Lisa Cupid said in July that Lawson had improperly followed her in an act of racial profiling.
Cupid said in a seven-page memo to county leadership that the she did not realize the unmarked car following her was an undercover cop until uniformed officers responding to her 911 call met her and escorted her home.
He never pulled her over, as she sped away from him as he found out the car was registered to the commissioner, according to myAJC.com.
“I believe the officer who followed me had complete and utter disregard for my safety, my well-being and the sanctity of community,” Cupid’s memo says. “That police officer was not there to protect and serve. He was there to harass and intimidate.”
CCPD acknowledged that Lawson was involved in that event.
A police investigation found that Lawson did not violate departmental policy in his encounter with Cupid, myAJC.com wrote.
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