A police officer in Bartow, Florida has “resigned” after he admitted to calling a gay man who’d called for assistance a “fuc*ing fa**ot.”

Interim Chief Bryan Dorman stated he would have fired Officer Timothy Daughtry had he not stepped down from his position, reports The Ledger.

Daughtry was responding to a call from Tyron Smith, the program manager of the George Harris Youth Shelter. A 12-year-old boy with a “history of unruly behavior” had pulled the fire alarm at the shelter when there was no fire, a first-degree misdemeanor, and administrators wanted him to face consequences.

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Smith asked Daughtry to arrest the boy, and the two got into an argument over whether that was an excessive move. Smith, who is Black, made a comment that if the boy was Black, he would have already been handcuffed, according to a report.

“That made me upset,” Daughtry said during the followup interview. “I said, well that’s f—–g bullshit, you know. I said shut the f–k up. At that point, Sarge told me to be quiet and to walk away — to get in the car. And as I was walking away, I said, ‘F—–g f—–t’ and then I got in my vehicle.”

Daughty defended his use of the slur as “just a term that I’ve used growing up, throughout life. It’s no different than if I was to say ‘Well that’s gay.’ It’s not, it’s just a term for disdainment, for a particular situation.”

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However, Smith is gay and said in an interview that he presents as obviously gay.

Dorman determined that “regardless of you recognizing the complainant as gay, you used profane language and a pejorative term directly toward someone who was asking police for assistance.”

“To engage in an argument with a member of the community and to use an LGBTQ slur during that argument is unacceptable by anyone, especially a member of the law enforcement community,” Dorman said. “I will not tolerate that type of behavior from any member of this organization.”

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