Support Your Local Police

In Mississippi, a police chief was caught in a racist screed where he bragged about shooting black people:

In a recording obtained by MCIR, a Mississippi law enforcement officer can be heard bragging about killing 13 people in the line of duty, saying, “I shot that n----- 119 times, OK?”

In that recording, the supervising officer can be heard using slurs toward those Black or gay and telling another officer, “I don’t give a f--- if you kill a motherf---er in cold blood.”

JULIAN, a civil rights and international human rights organization, shared the recording with MCIR and identified the officer as Sam Dobbins, the White police chief of Lexington, a 85% majority Black town on the edge of the Mississippi Delta.

Contacted for comment, Dobbins said he was unaware of the recording.

Asked whether he killed 13 people in the line of duty, he replied, “That’s something we don’t discuss, period.”

He also denied using slurs. “I don’t talk like that,” he said.

Cardell Wright, JULIAN’s paralegal and the president of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, obtained the audio from former officer Robert Lee Hooker who made the tape, calling the remarks on tape “appalling, racist, hateful and detrimental to the welfare of the people. This recording proves that the oppressors no longer wear white sheets, but they wear law enforcement uniforms.”

………

UPDATE, July 20: Francine Jefferson, JULIAN’s Mississippi state director of organizing, said the Lexington Board of Aldermen voted 3-2 to fire Dobbins. The two who voted to retain him were Richard Spencer, the White former mayor of Lexington, and Charles Simmons, a Black alderman.

Charles Henderson has been appointed interim chief.

“This firing is a victory for the community,” Jefferson said, “but the board is still ignoring the issue.”

She said Henderson has been the subject of a number of complaints by residents, and that the current culture of policing “must be rooted out completely.”

It won't be rooted out until you get rid of the racist and abusive cops, and those who tolerate their presence.  That's over 90% of the force. 

The only thing surprising here is that he got fired.