COOPERTOWN, TN (WSMV) -
A volunteer police officer with Coopertown has been forced to leave the department, and it's all because of what he said that was caught on tape.
Officer Robert McCormick is accused of blasting the mayor and using racial slurs while describing a recent traffic stop.
In a clerk's report, Eddie Brown claims McCormick approached Brown "with his hand on his gun" and "pulled slightly out of the holster."
Brown said he hadn't done anything wrong, in the alleged incident on Highway 49 in Coopertown.
Brown told Coopertown Mayor Sam Childs he was traveling the speed limit when McCormick began riding near the bumper of his truck.
The clerk's report states McCormick wasn't "running his lights."
In the end, Brown and his young son, Eddie Jr., were let go but not before Brown's tattered Tennessee driver's license was confiscated. He was told by McCormick go replace it with a new one that was in better condition.
Later, Brown complained to Childs. His drivers license was returned and McCormick was reprimanded.
But about one week later, McCormick was back at work and on the scene of a routine incident when he pulled another officer out of range from a police dash cam, and he began calling the mayor and Brown expletives.
"Mayor's a liberal f-----. He's made love to this damn n----- who lives in Springfield," McCormick is overheard saying.
McCormick has the conversation out of sight of the camera, but he either forgets or doesn't care that he's talking into an open microphone.
"Had this f------ n----- on my mind," he said.
Childs said Wednesday that McCormick is no longer a reserve officer for Coopertown because of all that's happened.
"The city doesn't deserve a black eye from it, but I'm afraid it is. I worked very hard to try to turn around the image we had, and this has to occur," Childs said.
The mayor said someone in the small Coopertown Police Department found the dash cam video and turned it over to an attorney.
At the time, there was concern McCormick was placed on a day's leave and told to undergo sensitivity training. He has since been forced to leave his position as a volunteer police officer with the city.
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TN police officer overheard using racial slurs
