During an impromptu February 29 news conference St. Landry’s Parrish Sheriff’s Captain Clay Higgins resigned his post, citing his refusal to cower to street gangs or “kneel to a…wanna-be black activist.”

His announcement came less than two weeks after Higgins released a video that named alleged members of the Gremlin street gang and referring to them as “animals” and “heathens” whom he was going to hunt down.

That video has now been pulled, but Breitbart News previously reported that it began with Higgins in uniform, flanked by myriad other armed and uniformed law enforcement officers and leaders from the black community. Higgins looked into the camera and said those identified with the Gremlins “are responsible for hundreds of violent crimes: murders, armed robberies, witness intimidation, burglaries, drug trafficking, extortion, and brutal beatings.”

He told viewers that the St. Landry Parrish Sheriff’s Office had “arrested ten of these thugs” and made clear that they had “warrants on seven more.” Higgins listed the seven wanted individuals–referring to them as “animals”–and warned they are “most definitely armed and dangerous.”

He closed the video by calling out one alleged gang member in particular–Darren Carter–saying:

Young man, I’ll meet you on solid ground anytime, anywhere, light or heavy, makes no difference to me. You won’t walk away. Look at you, men like us, son we do dumbbell presses with weights bigger than you. And the convicts in jail, most of those men are good people who just found themselves cross-ways with the law. And they don’t respect you or any punk like you. They’ll toss you around like a rag doll.

KATC reports that Higgins resigned Monday, after extended talks with St. Landry’s Parrish Sheriff Bobby Guidroz. The sheriff’s office faced considerable backlash after the video’s release and Higgins says he chose to turn in his badge rather than “abide by the sheriff’s current orders.”

Higgins said:

I will not kneel to violent street gangs. I will not kneel to murderers or the parents that raised them. I will not kneel to a discredited, wanna-be, black activist that doesn’t really have the best interest of his people in mind, who just wants to make a profit. I will not kneel to bureaucrats in Baton Rouge, Washington or anywhere else who have forgotten why they wear a badge and who have forgotten who they serve.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.