SARASOTA, Fla. --
A southwest Florida police officer accused of tossing peanuts to a
handcuffed man at a jail and then allowing the man to eat the food off
the floor has resigned.The Sarasota Police Department announced in a statement that Officer Andrew Halpin submitted a resignation letter Tuesday, shortly before a scheduled meeting with internal affairs investigators. He was placed on paid administrative leave last week after a video surfaced. Chief Bernadette DiPino had said she was disappointed in what she saw.
An intoxicated homeless man had been arrested on a trespassing charge July 18. The video first shows Halpin tossing food at the suspect's mouth. Moments later, the apparently drunk and handcuffed man slumps on the floor to retrieve dropped food, with Halpin pushing it toward him with his foot.
The inmate misses a peanut and starts looking for where it fell. The officer then throws another peanut - seemingly congratulating himself when it is caught.
The cop then laughs at the homeless man and leans back to get a better look, while the inmate searches for the peanut he missed.
"I was disgusted, disappointed, then started thinking about why do we always have these incidents in Sarasota?" said Michael Barfield, vice president of the ACLU in Florida.
Barfield called what happened humiliating and said Halpin has had disciplinary problems before with the department. The ACLU maintained the officer should be fired.
"We have to send a message that this kind of behavior is not going to be tolerated," Barfield said.
The video shows Halpin going back for more, taunting this homeless man by leaning back and forth with another peanut, teasing the inmate, even giving him dog commands, according to sources. The man under arrest is 44-year-old Randy Miller, who has a long rap sheet, mostly trespassing charges, including this arrest. Miller is seen crawling on the ground, eating the peanuts he missed off the floor, all while cops are watching.
Officer Halpin has been with the department since 2006.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.