Mississippi police chief linked to racist recording — Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting

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.”

JULIAN Founder Jill Collen Jefferson said she knows Dobbins well, and that it is definitely his voice. She said the tape reflects a pattern of behavior Lexington police that residents have shared in community meetings, detailing more than a dozen complaints against police.

Lifelong resident Shirley Gibson accused police of breaking into her house on Dec. 2. “An officer caught me by my neck, slung me on the ground, they Maced me not once but twice, they jumped on my son, they hit him, they stomped on his feet,” she told WLBT. “I’m very terrified because this isn’t the first time they did this. They did not have a search warrant.”

Jefferson said JULIAN is calling for the firing of Chief Dobbins “and every problematic officer,” as well as a formal investigation by the FBI.

On the tape, the supervising officer can be heard saying, “You’re going to get some s--- in the streets, and there’s only going to be one man fighting for you, and it’s going to be me, OK? Don’t ever ruin that, all right, because these other n-----s, they’re [unintelligible]. I don’t give a f--- if you kill a mother---er in cold blood. I will articulate to fix the f---ing problem, and I’m the only man in the business here that’s smart enough to do it.”

The officer bragged about his past killings. “I have killed 13 men in my career, justified,” he said. “In my line of duty, I have shot and killed 13 different people.”

“You shot that many motherf---ers?” the other officer asked.

“Yes, sir, justified, bro’,” the officer asked. “Ask around.”

The officer began to detail some of those cases, saying, “I’m talking about a man had a gun, a man had to die.”

He described a shootout in a cornfield. “Justified, bro’,” he said. “I shot that n----- 119 times, OK? I saved 67 kids in a school.”

“I chased this motherf---er across the field. I got him. He was DRT [dead right there] in the field. The vehicle was shot 319 times, but he was hit 119 times by me.”

He said he was cleared at the sheriff’s office, where he worked at the time, and received his gun back before he ever sat back down.

When the subject arises of him talking to someone, he responded with slurs toward gays, “I don’t talk to f---ing queers, I don’t talk to f---ing faggots.”

He talked of an officer who was perpetually late. “I can be a motherf---er,” he said. “I really can.”

Then he told the officer, “I can only pay you 32 hours a week. You can work all you want to.”

He talked of inheriting his tough ways from the one who trained him. If a suspect “got out of line, I didn’t open the door,” the officer said. “I smashed the mother---er through the window. It would get your attention real quick.”

The bad guys, he said, “think it’s a game.”

Dobbins was appointed by the Lexington Board of Alderman last July. On the tape, the officer can be heard saying, “I work for the board, so when I want something, I want it right then.”

Jefferson said he hasn’t seen “this level of callousness since Bull Connor,” the commissioner of public safety who used firehoses and dogs on children protesting in Birmingham in 1963.

She said the town of Lexington “never shifted from Jim Crow,” like other small towns. “We just stopped paying attention.”

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.”