The officer patrolled the streets of Lexington with impunity despite a well-known history of harassment.
Local aldermen voted 3-2 to fire Dobbins on July 20 to applause from Black residents. However, those residents and activists say the problem of racist policing in Lexington and across the South is much bigger than Dobbins. Jill Collen Jefferson, founder and director of JULIAN, the Mississippi-based civil rights group that filed the lawsuit, said it’s time to shine a light on the ongoing racist abuses in Lexington.
Of Lexington’s roughly 1,800 residents, about 85 percent are Black, but former Police Chief Dobbins, the local prosecutor, the judge, the mayor, and other top officials are all white and politically intertwined with one wealthy white family, according to Jefferson. Katherine Barrett Riley, the city’s attorney and a member of the family Jefferson described, did not respond to a request for comment.
“It’s a nightmare, it’s terrible, people are afraid to even walk down the street to go to the store to pay bills, because every time Black people come out, it’s always a problem,” Walden said over the phone on Thursday. “No matter if you ride or if you’re walking, it’s still a problem, especially the young Blacks, the younger generations, it’s a problem for them.”
“It’s the ‘good old boy’ network, this is how this works,” Jefferson said. “What’s happening in Lexington is not only happening in Lexington, it’s also happeningJefferson, who is Black, said Dobbins once blocked her from entering the local courtroom and threatened to arrest the civil rights attorney if she went inside. Jefferson said she called the office of Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, a Republican, but was told the local courtroom was outside of Fitch’s jurisdiction.
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