Cop Who Pushed Don Lemon in Ferguson Retires

A police officer who first got attention for pushing CNN anchor Don Lemon during a live report from Ferguson is retiring -- with full benefits -- after the added scrutiny uncovered his racist and homophobic past.

Dan Page, a St. Louis County police officer, had been suspended but opted to retire to avoid further investigation, reports MSNBC. His last day was Monday.

Page pushed Lemon and others during the out journalist's coverage of protests in Ferguson over the fatal shooting of unarmed black man Michael Brown. Afterward, Lemon notified Page's supervisors about a speech the officer gave in 2012 to an organization called Oath Keepers, the St. Louis Post-Dispatchreported.

In video of the hour-long rant, Page calls gay people in the military "sickening" and "pitiful," rails against hate-crimes laws, and says four of the U.S. Supreme Court's justices are "homosexual sodomites." He calls President Obama "that illegal alien who claims to be our president," says Muslims "will kill you," and advises women to relax about "domestic violence stuff," as couples who don't get along should "just shoot each other and get it over with."

He also warns Missouri's U.S. senators, Claire McCaskill and Roy Blunt, that he is "real good with a rifle," and says that while he is a Christian, he is nonetheless proud of being a killer. "I've killed a lot," says Page, a former Green Beret and 35-year veteran of the police department. "And if I need to, I'll kill a whole bunch more.... God did not raise me to be a coward."

Watch video of Lemon being pushed back by police:

Watch video of the speech below:

Trudy Ring contributed to this report.