Police Chief Sam Dobbins Fired For Bragging About Racist Shooting

You can’t reform this!

Source: FREDERIC J. BROWN / Getty

Very few heroes seem to wear badges, but Robert Lee Hooker might be the exception. According to the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, he’s a Black cop who truly did change the system from the inside by getting Lexington, Mississippi’s racist police chief Sam Dobbins fired. Hooker secretly recorded the chief allegedly boasting about the Black people he abused and even murdered.

The first time Hooker joined the Lexington Police Department earlier this year, he only lasted a few days. He quickly resigned over the toxic work environment full of n-bombs, homophobic slurs, and bragging about brutality against Black people.

Instead of running like the cowards in Uvalde, Hooker returned to Lexington PD on a mission. He wanted to expose the police department’s racism starting from the very top. When it comes to wannabe slave catchers like Dobbins, who is white, it didn’t take long for the racism to jump out.

On April 11, Hooker secretly recorded an Dobbins. The clip starts with the former police chief seeming to double down on a racist slur or something that offended Hooker.

“Well, if you’re looking for an apology after I gave you an apology back then, you’re barking up the wrong tree,” Dobbins said.

“I told you the other day, I said, ‘Hooker, you’re going to understand. I didn’t mean anything personal by it when I said what I said.’’ …If you gonna let some words bother you, maybe this ain’t the place for you.”

Dobbins claims that he only disrespected Hooker so he could get a word in on the conversation. What are the odds he dusted off some Jim Crow lingo instead of just saying “excuse me?”

“I’m just trying to get you to shut up. That’s all I was trying to get you to do. …It ain’t nothing personal,” Dobbins insisted.

Hooker seems to get through to his boss with an explanation about what offended him. It didn’t last long. Dobbins apologized and then played victim, demanding an apology for Hooker walking out. Then Dobbins got deep into his Klan hood on a whole racist rant bragging about murders and misconduct.

“You’re going to get some s**t 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’ll let you fry,” Dobbins said.

“I don’t give a f**k if you kill a motherf***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.”

Smart enough to cover up cold-blooded killings? Dobbins was giddy to detail the kind of depraved behavior Black America has fought for centuries. He sounded like a hunter discussing animals as he described the stats of people he shot and killed.

“I have killed 13 men in my career, justified,” Dobbins explained. “In my line of duty, I have shot and killed 13 different people.”

Once he was on a racist roll, Dobbins gave a highlight reel of past shootings. One of his favorites was a shootout in a cornfield.

“I shot that n***er 119 times, OK? I saved 67 kids in a school,” he recalled.

“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.”

No wonder Dobbins felt above the law. He said immediately after the shooting, he was cleared and “received his gun back before he ever sat down.”

On July 20, the Lexington Board of Aldermen voted to fire Dobbins. It’s no surprise he felt so confident about getting away with murder. The board didn’t even vote unanimously against baby Bull Connor. Lexington’s White former mayor Richard Spencer and Black alderman Charles Simmons voted to keep him. The whole system is guilty.

Listen to the full recording of the former police chief in his own words here.