Eddie Glaude, Jr., is a Mississippi native, renowned author, political commentator and educator. Glaude was in Jackson as the speaker for the Medgar Wiley Evers Lecture Series held at the Two Mississippi Museums, Thursday, Apr. 28, 2022. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Mississippi native Eddie Glaude, one of the world’s leading thinkers and teachers on race, keeps bearing witness about America’s ugly, unacknowledged history and how it will shape our future.
For years, Glaude, a faculty leader at Princeton University, has channeled his upbringing and his academic studies to inspire Americans to think deeply about where the nation has been and where it’s headed.
And this weekend, Glaude will come home to do more of it when he headlines the Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson. His most recent book “Begin Again” analyzes the past, present and future of America through the writings and life of James Baldwin.
This will be Glaude’s third trip home this calendar year. In May, he gave a stirring commencement address at Rust College, the historically Black institution in Holly Springs. A couple weeks earlier, he was in Jackson to deliver a powerful Medgar Wiley Evers lecture at the Two Mississippi Museums that attendees said was more akin to a sermon than a speech.
Touching on several Baldwin writings, a central theme of Glaude’s April lecture was that “the American idea is in trouble.”
“History matters because we carry it within us. And Mississippi is soaked in history,” Glaude said. “And as James Baldwin wrote, ‘It is in great pain and terror one that one begins to assess that history, which is placed one where one is and formed one’s point of view, because one enters into battle with that historical creation oneself.’”
Being largely unwilling to acknowledge our true past, Glaude says, is why so many Americans feel so uncertain about our future.
“We’re trapped in a history we refuse to know but carry within us,” Glaude said. “And Baldwin says this is the root of our unadmitted sorrow. The terrors and panic we experience have everything to do with the gap between who we imagine ourselves to be and who, deep down, we really are. The fact that we evade that question locks us into a kind of perpetual adolescence.”
Glaude continued: “I come from a tradition that offers a story of the country that forces it to confront its ugliness, to in fact urge the country to grow the hell up. We have to live close to the ground if we’re gonna change. We have to understand the power of everyday ordinary people, to imagine a better future. We have to tell ourselves the truth in order to release us into a different way of being in the world. We have to tell the truth to Gov. Tate Reeves, tell the truth to Joe Biden. As long as we view racial equality as a philanthropic enterprise, as long as we view racial justice as an act of charity, we’re in trouble still.”
Watch Glaude’s lecture at the Two Mississippi Museums on April 28:
Greenwood Leflore Hospital will delay resuming inpatient operations even after clean-up efforts related to a sewage leak have been completed, hospital officials announced Thursday.
Officials cited the hospital’s precarious financial position as the cause of the shutdown.
“The hospital continues to be on diversion and is temporarily delaying the re-opening of inpatient services,” the press release stated. “Further analysis is required to determine with labor shortages and higher labor costs how we can continue to operate while remaining viable until a lease is finalized.”
Questions about the number of employees affected by the shutdown of inpatient services were not immediately answered by hospital officials.
The hospital said it had received approval by the Mississippi State Department of Health for the repairs to the underground crawl space the sewage had seeped into earlier this week, and that it is now safe to resume normal operations.
The clinics inside the hospital are reopening and outpatient services, including surgeries, laboratory and radiological testing have resumed.
On Monday, clogged manholes forced sewage into the crawl space below the hospital. As a result, at least 17 patients were transferred to six other hospitals across Mississippi and one hospital in Arkansas. At least 16 patients were discharged.
Despite the sewage problem, the hospital has continued to operate its labor and delivery unit, emergency department and the clinics located outside of the main hospital building.
The hospital, which is jointly owned by Leflore County and the city of Greenwood, laid off 30 people in May to offset losses during the pandemic. It announced in June that it is in talks with the University of Mississippi Medical Center on a joint operation agreement.
“GLH began the process of seeking affiliation partners as the hospital emerged from the Delta and Omicron waves of the pandemic,” the hospital said in a June press release. “Affiliation, particularly with a larger system like UMMC, the state’s only academic medical center and largest hospital, can result in cost efficiencies that are necessary to attain sustainable operations over the long term.”
UMMC declined to comment on the potential lease agreement.
The 208-bed facility is one of the largest employers in Leflore County with 770 employees.
The Mississippi State Personnel Board gave the state’s welfare department the green light Thursday to hire new legal counsel for its high-profile civil lawsuit to recoup millions in misspent welfare funds.
Jackson-based law firm Jones Walker will replace former U.S. Attorney Brad Pigott, the contract attorney who initially crafted the lawsuit, after the Gov. Tate Reeves administration abruptly removed Pigott from the case last month. The new one-year contract is for up to $400,000, with partners working on the case earning a rate of $305-an-hour. Pigott’s contract was for up to $75,000 for the previous year.
One defense attorney on the case is criticizing the state for using taxpayer money in its pursuit of many low-level characters in the overarching welfare scandal. The attorney, Jim Waide, is also raising questions about how the new contract will ensure that Reeves is not controlling the case to the extent that he would prevent other potential parties, including himself and former Gov. Phil Bryant, from being included as defendants if the attorneys deemed that appropriate. Mississippi Today has uncovered communication connecting certain welfare expenditures to both Bryant and Reeves.
Mississippi Department of Human Services is suing 38 people or companies, including former NFL quarterback Brett Favre and three retired WWE wrestlers, who it says were responsible for misspending roughly $24 million from a federal grant called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
“They (Jones Walker) will vigorously pursue this case—wherever it leads,” Gov. Reeves said in a statement following the contract approval. “They will eagerly cooperate with those criminal investigators whose mission is to get truth and justice for the misconduct that occurred during the previous administration. And they will leave no stone unturned in the effort to recover misspent TANF funds.”
In the personnel board meeting, Mississippi Department of Human Services Director Bob Anderson said he believes the agency needs a larger legal team as the litigation moves into the discovery and trial phases. Anderson had previously justified Pigott’s removal by saying the attorney failed to communicate with the agency about a subpoena he filed on University of Southern Mississippi athletic foundation.
Anderson said the new attorneys who will be handling the case, Kaytie Pickett and Adam Stone, have experience in complex commercial litigation as well as procurement-related matters.
“While Brad Pigott initiated and prepared the original complaint in this case, we believe that Jones Walker is who we need to finish the process of getting to final judgment and recovery of funds,” Anderson said in a written statement. “They have a deep bench and are well acquainted with complex electronic discovery platforms, which will be crucial in a case like this involving hundreds and thousands of documents.”
Jones Walker, like many large law firms across the state, is a frequent campaign donor to Mississippi politicians — including a total of at least $18,000 to Reeves, according to records on FollowTheMoney.org. Locally, the firm used to be Watkins Ludlam Winter & Stennis before it merged with Jones Walker over a decade ago.
The Attorney General’s Office also had to approve the contract.
Waide, an attorney for a defendant in the case, wrote a letter to the personnel board before the meeting criticizing the state’s decision to hire a new law firm and urging the board not to approve a contract that wastes taxpayer funds. Waide represents Austin Smith, the nephew of the former MDHS director John Davis, who is facing criminal charges in the scheme.
Kelly Hardwick, director of the personnel board, said the board reviewed the letter, but that “that’s outside of anything we would consider.”
Hardwick said the Jones Walker contract was within the state’s procurement guidelines and regulations.
Waide had recently filed an objection to the state’s motion to withdraw Pigott as counsel and asked that the court examine whether Reeves is controlling the lawsuit to protect himself and his supporters. The filing came after Mississippi Today uncovered text messages connecting the current governor to the funding of fitness trainer Paul Lacoste, a defendant in the case. Lacoste’s organization received $1.3 million, more than $300,000 of which went to Lacoste personally, according to records, to conduct fitness classes for roughly eight months in 2019. Then-Lt. Gov. Reeves attended the boot camp while texts show Lacoste used his relationship with Reeves to endear himself to the welfare director.
Previous reporting also showed that Reeves’ office directed MDHS to remove the University of Southern Mississippi Athletic Foundation, whose board is made up of several Reeves donors, from the suit before it was filed. The foundation used $5 million in welfare funds to build a volleyball stadium on campus.
“…the governor himself is a potential defendant,” Waide wrote to the personnel board. “Because of the potential financial interest of the governor, he should hire his own attorney, and should not be furnished an attorney at taxpayer expense.”
In his statement, Anderson noted that Jones Walker will be tasked with, among other things, evaluating claims against additional potential defendants. Several law firms Anderson spoke with could not take the case because of conflicts.
Waide also called into question why Attorney General Lynn Fitch, the state’s official litigator, is not handling the case.
“Unless the Attorney General has a conflict of interest, there is no reason why she should not pursue this suit without costing the taxpayers,” Waide wrote.
Waide also argued that if MDHS hires a law firm to represent the state, it should pay the firm based on what they recoup in the litigation, not a set fee, especially since so many of the defendants will likely not be able to pay the potential damages. An attorney under a contingency arrangement might be more likely to pursue other entities that received welfare funds — such as the USM athletic foundation — who received larger amounts of money and would be more likely able to return the funds.
“An hourly fee arrangement with any firm will likely result in the expensive pursuit of low-level defendants, such as Austin Smith and others, who have no means to pay a judgement. On the other hand, an attorney hired on a contingent fee basis would pursue those who are financially able to pay a judgement, and would cost the taxpayers nothing if no funds are recovered.”
Jones Walker did not return calls to Mississippi Today for this story.
“This work is just beginning, and it may take years—but we will follow the facts wherever they go and pursue it for as long as it takes,” said Reeves’ statement Thursday. “That is what the state has done since I took office, and we will continue to do it aggressively.”
Students in Mississippi approached pre-pandemic levels of achievement on state tests this spring, showing significant growth from the previous year.
The results from the 2022 administration of the state tests, or Mississippi Academic Assessment Program (MAAP), show that 2-4% fewer students passed English, science, and math exams this year than in 2019.
Last year in 2021, the first time that state tests were administered following the pandemic, around 10% fewer students passed their tests than in 2019, which education officials said was evidence of the impact of COVID-19 and were reflective of national trends.
These results, presented to the State Board of Education on Thursday, are a testament to the hard work of students and educators, as well as the return to in-person learning, according to Department of Education officials.
“They provide clear and indisputable evidence of the resilience of students and educators and their ability to recover from the disruptions to learning,” said Kim Benton, interim state superintendent of education. “We don’t always see that, but there’s a lot that has been going on to mitigate this disruption in learning and people have pulled out all the stops to make sure that’s happened.”
The number of students who scored proficient was exactly the same as or slightly above numbers from 2019, indicating that higher performing students possibly bounced back faster. Proficiency refers to the percentage of students who scored at a level 4 or 5 (proficient or advanced) on a 1 through 5 scale. A level 1 indicates a score of “minimal,” 2 is “basic” and 3 is “passing.”
Benton said these results show the need to look at the data of individual students and identify which areas they require support to advance.
“When I looked at the distribution, what it looked like to me was that we moved children up, we regained the proficiency levels pre-pandemic, but you also have children right there on the cusp (of passing)…which means we’ve got to push further faster,” she said.
Research from the Nation Bureau of Economic Research published in May of this year showed that, nationally, high-poverty schools were more likely to go remote and suffered larger declines in academic achievement when they did so.
Benton said the department is reviewing this new data to ensure that they are providing support appropriately, since literacy and math coaches are assigned to districts based on the number of students who did not reach proficiency.
A more detailed look at the state test results, including performance by subgroup and growth data, will be available in October when the state publishes districts’ accountability results.
Brittney Reese, former Olympic gold medalist and now tickled to be the girls track coach at Gulfport High School. (Photo: Vickie King) Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
GULFPORT — Yes, track and field superstar Brittney Reese says, there are times these days when she walks the hallways of Gulfport High School, she feels a powerful sense of deja vu.
“It wasn’t that long ago, you know, I was one of these kids trying to figure it out,” Reese says.
Actually, it was 18 years ago – 2004 – when Reese graduated from Gulfport High. There are other ways to look at it. Such as: For Reese, it was four Olympics Games ago. It was three Olympic medals (one gold, two silver) ago. It was two NCAA championships at Ole Miss, 12 U.S. championships and six world championships ago. It was before she became the greatest female long jumper in history.
Rick Cleveland
And now, after a professional career spent traveling the globe and leaping distances few can even imagine, Reese has returned to her hometown, to her high school, as a coach.
“It’s time to give back,”Reese says. “I’ve always said I was going to come back and try to give back to the people who have done so much for me.”
Reese is the new coach of the Gulfport girls cross country and track and field teams. She is also developing an indoor track and field program, for which she will be the head coach of both boys and girls teams.
Her mission: To help return Gulfport High track and field to the powerhouse status that the program enjoyed back when she was running and jumping and her Gulfport coach, now retired Prince Jones, was coaching championship teams seemingly year after year.
“We’ve had some success in recent years, but not to the standards Gulfport has had in the past,” says Gulfport’s new athletic director Matt Walters. “Who better to help show us the way than homegrown world champion, a living legend?”
You should know that Reese called Walters – not the other way around – about the job.
Joe Walker Jr., the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame coach who recruited Reese to Ole Miss, believes Gulfport has made a grand slam hire.
“Brittney has all the tools to be a great coach,” Walker said. “She knows the sport, has great character and always has had the perfect blend of humility and ego to coach. She has what it takes.”
What Reese needs – what any coach worth his or her stopwatch needs – are athletes. In Gulfport’s case, more athletes are needed.
As Prince Jones, the 77-year-old ex-coach puts it: “When you load a bus up full of really good athletes, it makes you a really good coach. The key is numbers.”
To that end, Reese has spent much of her first few days on the job recruiting. No, she isn’t recruiting from other schools. She is recruiting from other Gulfport sports teams: football, basketball, soccer, tennis, you name it. Her belief is that participation in track and field and cross country will help athletes in their other respective sports and vice-versa.
She is finding allies in that approach. One is Marcus Price, the new head coach of the Gulfport girls basketball team, who says, “I told my girls I wanted them to get out there and learn everything they can from her. There are so many lessons these kids can learn from her about preparation and perseverance, as well as technique. I am in awe of her myself.”
Brittney Reese talks with members of the Gulfport High track team shortly before practice on Aug. 9, 2022. (Photo: Vickie King) Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Reese, who is by nature quiet and reserved, doesn’t have to just talk a good game, either. She stands as living, breathing proof that playing more than one sport is not only possible but preferred. After all, Prince Jones once recruited her off the basketball team. She competed in basketball, track and field (jumping and sprints) and cross country. She was all-state in all.
Indeed, basketball was her primary sport even into junior college at nearby Gulf Coast.
At first, Reese ran cross country and then sprints during the track season. But Jones was short of athletes in the field events and asked for volunteers to try the long jump. “I was looking for someone who could jump at least 17 feet,” Jones says.
Several girls tried without success, Jones says. Reese said, “Coach, I can do that.”
Says Jones, “I told her you’re already running the 100, 200 and all the relays, but she said it again, ‘Coach, I can do that.’”
So Jones let her try. She jumped 17 and a half feet. I told her to try it again, and she jumped 18 and a half. Suddenly Reese had another event, one in which she would eventually set a world record and earn the nickname “Da Beast.”
Reese believes her versatility – she also high jumped – will help her in coaching. “I’ve done pretty much all of it and been around it at a high, high level,” she says.
She has also coached when she wasn’t competing. Before moving back to Gulfport, Reese lived in San Diego, where she worked out at the Olympic Training Center and coached at San Diego Mesa Community College. She also worked as a private coach for runners and jumpers.
It is an old axiom in sports that not all great athletes make great coaches. The theory is that great athletes have so much natural ability they don’t necessarily have to work as hard on fundamentals and training. But both Prince Jones and Joe Walker say Reese was a tireless worker.
Gulfport track team member Lania McDonald and girls head coach Brittney Reese share a laugh during practice at the school. (Vickie King) Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Matt Walters, the athletic director, says Reese “has hit the ground running.”
“Naturally, there was a concern about how an Olympic and world champion would react to coaching high school kids,” Walters said. “She has been extremely humble and has really connected with the kids. She’s been going to all the teams on campus and the kids have embraced it. She’s going to the junior highs and even the elementary schools.”
Sixteen-year old Lania McDonald, who will run both cross country and track and field, says she can scarcely believe she will be coached by a former Olympic gold medalist from her own hometown. “I’d be crazy not to soak up as much of her knowledge as I can,” she said, calling her new coach “down to earth” and “funny.”
Reese will also help the Gulfport boys team jumpers, because, well, why would she not?
Deavious Weary Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Deavious Weary, a 15-year-old, is running cross country now but plans to long jump in the spring and says he can’t wait to be coached by a former world champ. When Reese is told what Weary has said, she smiles and says, “He’s got the bounce, I can see that. There’s a lot more to it than that, of course.”
But that’s the deal: Few people in the world know more about the “a lot more to it” than Brittney Reese, who also looks forward to coaching her adopted son Alex Wilde, who is a ninth grader currently practicing with the Gulfport football team. Alex has shown some promise as a long jumper.
Reese made her last competitive jump at the Tokyo Olympics in June of 2021, winning the silver medal, coming just 1.18 inches short of the gold. She will turn 36 in September and says she knew in her heart it was time to get on with the rest of her life And she knew where she wanted to live it – and what she wanted to do.
She says she is proudest of “my longevity, to be as successful as I was for as long as I was. I was at the top or near the top of the world for more than 10 years. I can’t complain in any way about my career.”
As for the move across the continent back to Gulfport, Reese says, “San Diego was nice, really expensive, but really nice. But this is home. I’ve got family and so many friends here. This is where I want to live. Every day that I have been back has re-enforced it was the right decision to me.”
For Mississippi Today’s first members-only book club, managing editor Kayleigh Skinner was joined by award-winning chef and now author Vishwesh Bhatt to answer questions from Mississippi Today members. Chef Bhatt discussed the inspiration behind his book, how he came into cooking, and the importance of community, among many other topics like how to properly approach cooking okra. His new book, “I Am From Here: Stories and Recipes from a Southern Chef” debuted August 16 and is a collection of recipes and stories from his unique perspective as a chef who has made a home here in the South. Read a full review of Bhatt’s book.
Watch the full event:
A native of Gujarat, India, Bhatt later moved to the United States where he’s become known for his inventive dishes that bring southern staples together with subcontinent cuisine, such as Peanut Masala–Stuffed Baby Eggplant and Collard-Wrapped Catfish with a spicy Peanut Pesto. He is 2019 Southern Living’s Southerner of the Year, 2019 James Beard Foundation Best Chef South, and was inducted into the Fellowship of Southern Farmers, Artisans, and Chefs in 2022. Bhatt has been a part of Chef John Currence’s City Grocery Restaurant Group since 1997, becoming executive chef of Snackbar in Oxford, Miss., in 2009.
Bhatt will host a book signing prior to participating in the Taste of the South panel during the Mississippi Book Festival on August 20.
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Caden LeMieux smiles for the camera on Wednesday, three days after receiving his liver transplant. Credit: Courtesy of Cristi Montgomery
The 28-year-old Neshoba County man who had to travel to Houston for a liver transplant because of a dispute between his insurer and the hospital that runs the state’s only organ transplant program received his new liver on Saturday.
Ironically, Caden LeMieux’s new liver came from someone in Mississippi, his mother Cristi Montgomery said.
“His surgeon actually flew back to Mississippi himself and picked up the organ, then flew back to Houston,” said Montgomery.
After the four-hour surgery late Saturday afternoon at Hermann Memorial Health System, LeMieux has made marked improvement: both his chest and nasogastric tubes have been removed, and on Monday, he was able to eat and take several steps. By Tuesday, he was making laps around the hall in the hospital, Montgomery said.
Montgomery posted a picture of LeMieux’s hands two days before surgery and two days after surgery on her Facebook page. In the first, his hands are a dark yellow – in the second, they have the appearance of a normal skin tone.
LeMieux, who was diagnosed with liver disease 10 years ago, was admitted to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in early July following excruciating stomach pain and high levels of bilirubin, which caused his skin and eyes to turn yellow. His 6-foot-2 frame weighed in at less than 130 pounds, and the weight kept coming off.
He was told he was in active liver failure and needed a transplant imminently. But UMMC couldn’t do it because of the hospital’s ongoing contract dispute with Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi, which has left the state’s largest hospital out of network with its largest private insurer since April 1.
While the two parties are currently in mediation, there is no resolution in sight.
After the family got the call late Thursday, Montgomery and her husband, who own their own business in Philadelphia, closed their bakery on Friday to make the 450-mile drive to Houston. Montgomery said she expects her son will be discharged from the hospital by Monday. Before that, they will give her and his other family members instructions for how to care for him.
“He has to have round-the-clock care, 24/7, and has to go back to the doctor twice a week for four weeks,” she said.
While LeMieux’s father and stepmother live in Houston, the rest of his family – including six of his seven siblings – are all in Mississippi. Montgomery said she plans to be in Houston every other week and will travel back and forth for the foreseeable future. LeMieux will likely have to remain in the Houston area for at least a year.
Montgomery said it will be a balancing act to care for LeMieux while he’s so far from their home.
“It’s tough being nine hours away, especially with me being self employed. But obviously, Caden’s health and well being is our main priority,” she said. “So we’ll just have to make it work.”
Editor’s note: Kate Royals, Mississippi Today’s community health editor since January 2022, worked as a writer/editor for UMMC’s Office of Communications from November 2018 through August 2020, writing press releases and features about the medical center’s schools of dentistry and nursing. A longtime journalist in major Mississippi newsrooms, Royals had served as a Mississippi Today reporter for two years before her stint at UMMC. At UMMC, Royals was in no way involved in management decisions or anything related to the medical center’s relationship or contract with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Mississippi.
The Clevelands discuss the upcoming college football season, specifically the over-and-under on victories for each of the Mississippi schools. Oddsmakers have set the over-under on victories for Ole Miss (7.5), Mississippi State (6.5) and Southern Miss (5). Also, Ole Miss ranks No. 21 in the first AP poll. That’s the good news. The bad is that the Rebels are sixth among SEC teams. Also, we celebrate the life of Corky Palmer, the legendary Southern Miss baseball coach.
Black residents in a small Delta town have been subjected to excessive force, intimidation and false arrests by its police force for over a year, a federal lawsuit alleges.
JULIAN, a civil rights organization, is asking the court to issue a temporary restraining order against the Lexington Police Department to prevent mistreatment against residents.
“It’s both unconscionable and illegal for Lexington residents to be terrorized and live in fear of the police department whose job is to protect them,” Jill Collen Jefferson, president and founder of JULIAN, said in a statement.
Subjects of the lawsuit are the city, police department, Interim Police Chief Charles Henderson and former Chief Sam Dobbins. The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.
Lexington, which has a population of about 1,800 people, is 86% Black. It is located in one of the state’s poorest counties – Holmes County.
The lawsuit says former chief Dobbins and interim chief have violated Black residents’ constitutional rights for over a year and continue to. That behavior has included retaliation against residents who speak out against police, false arrests, baseless vehicle searches and unreasonable force by police.
Over 200 Black citizens formally or informally complained about treatment by Lexington police in the past year, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit comes a month after an audio recording surfaced of Dobbins making racist and homophobic language and bragging about killing multiple people as a member of the police force.
Robert Lee Hooker, a Black officer who resigned from the Lexington police department, recorded the conversation with Dobbins and gave it to JULIAN. The Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting first reported the recording.
“Justified, bro’,” Dobbins said in the recording. “I shot that n—– 119 times, OK?”
“I don’t give a f— if you kill a motherf—er in cold blood,” he said in another portion of the recording.
A day later, the Board of Aldermen fired Dobbins in a 3-2 vote and made Henderson the interim chief.
When reached for comment about the lawsuit, Dobbins declined to comment to the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting Tuesday.
Five Black men who experienced retaliation, arrest and other mistreatment by Lexington police are plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Plaintiffs Robert and Darius Harris, who are brothers, were approached by officers on New Year’s Eve and threatened to arrest them for violating the city’s fireworks ordinance, according to the lawsuit. The men asked them to leave their home and verbally resisted the threats.
Stills from cell phone footage accompany what happened next: Robert Harris raising his hand to ask police to stand down as his brother stands behind him. Darius Harris on the ground after an officer used a taser on him. Police, including Dobbins, shining a flashlight and trying to give Darius Harris commands while he is still being tased. Officers arresting Darius Harris as he lays on the ground.
Plaintiffs are also asking the court to award the plaintiffs compensatory damages and punitive damages against Dobbins and Hendersen, attorneys fees and court costs.
Community members have also expressed concern about Henderson’s appointment. In its statement, JULIAN said he is a protege of Dobbins and also has a troubling reputation.
In the lawsuit, Henderson is accused of authorizing misconduct of Lexington police officers against Black residents. He has also used excessive force, including during an incident where he and a group of officers broke down the door of a 60-year-old woman’s home without a warrant, arrested her, hosed her down with a fire hose and left her outside during wintertime, according to the lawsuit.
Lexington Mayor Robin McCrory, City Attorney Katherine Barrett Riley and Henderson were not immediately available for comment Wednesday.
The organization has also contacted the U.S. Attorney’s Office and FBI to call for a federal investigation of systemic racism in both the city’s police department and municipal government as a whole.
“The culture of Lexington is corrupt,” the lawsuit states.
