News 12 at 6 o' clock/ Oct. 29, 2014

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW) -- We are learning more about why a Richmond County deputy quit his job. In his own words, Deputy Mike Swint tells the Sheriff why he's resigning.

Deputy Swint was seen by many as a star on the Richmond County Sheriff's department. He was hand picked by the department to be featured on the show "COPS."

When News 12 sat down with the Sheriff early Tuesday, he showed no indication Swint would leave the force.

When we asked Sheriff Roundtree if Deputy Swint was still with the department? He responded, "Absolutely."

But, Swint's resignation came just hours later. In his resignation letter, Swint referenced social media, and says "This agency and my family do not deserve to be under this type of scrutiny and although false information has been spread, it has taken its toll".

Through an open records request for Deputy Swint's personnel file, News 12 found a history of violence and threats. We uncovered documents from an assault charge from 2003, before he was hired by the Sheriff's Office. The victim was an ex-girlfriend who said Swint 'approached her in a group of friends and attempted to get her to leave with him'. Before he left, the report says he told the group he was '...leaving to get a gun, come back, and kill them all.'

In 2005, a disciplinary report in his file says Deputy Swint saw an ex-girlfriend in a downtown bar, and 'became irate. Off duty deputies took him outside and tried to talk to him.' But Swint insisted on going back in, and fell into the window, breaking it. He was suspended for one day following the incident.

The deputy's ex-wife, Shaunte Swint, says she witnessed his temper firsthand.

"When you are with someone in an intimate situation, and you live with them for an extended period of time, you see other sides of them that other people don't see," Shaunte explained.

Threatening text messages surfaced on Facebook earlier this week. The deputy's ex-wife showed them to us on her cell phone, and says Mike Swint sent them to her shortly after they divorced last year. One reads: 'Anyone who sends you anything about me...tell them that I am and will kill them. Not talkin crap. I will literally shoot them in their head and do my best to cover it up.'

"I saved those text messages in the event that something had happened to me," she said.

After she went on a date with someone new, she says he texted: 'If they work for the Sheriff's Office I hope and pray that they get killed...Hope their kids get killed.'

"We fought constantly. Although I know some of it was my fault, I'm not perfect, a lot of it was the fact that he had really bad anger issues, and he would just flip out," she said.

Swint's resignation takes effect November 11th. He's spending his final days on the force cashing in vacation time. News 12 attempted to reach Deputy Swint for comment. We called the telephone number we've used several times to contact him for previous news stories. The person answering first told us we had a wrong number. A follow up call went to a generic voice mail recording.