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Both chambers of the Mississippi Legislature have advanced bills aiming to crack down on immigration, despite some lawmakers raising concerns that the federal government is responsible for enforcement and that the proposals could inadvertently harm U.S. citizens. 

The Senate on Tuesday passed a measure that would create a state crime of being in Mississippi illegally and authorize local law enforcement to charge people with being in the state without proper documentation. 

Sen. Angela Hill, a Republican from Picayune, is the author of the bill. She said the measure would not impose additional duties on local law enforcement. But it would “align” state immigration law with federal law. 

“If someone comes into Mississippi through the Gulf of America and not through a legal point of entry, this would create a state crime, a felony, for someone coming into Mississippi and bypassing a legal port of entry,” Hill said. 

Every Democrat, except Juan Barnett of Heidelberg, opposed the measure. All of the chamber’s 34 Republicans supported it. 

Sen. Briggs Hopson, a Republican from Vicksburg, argued the legislation needed more work. Hopson, an attorney, ultimately voted in favor of the bill, but raised concerns that the legislation may be unconstitutional because immigration enforcement is a federal, not state, responsibility.

“I think our government ought to be doing things with immigration,” Hopson said. “But current law is that this is a federal issue and not a state issue.” 

Hill said she believes the measure is constitutional. 

But she argued that if Mississippi had not disregarded concerns about complying with U.S. Supreme Court precedent and passed a 2018 law that restricted access to abortions, then the U.S. Supreme Court would have never overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. 

“What I would say is if this body had not fought to override Roe v. Wade, we’d have a clinic over there that’s pink,” Hill said, referencing the Jackson Women’s Health Organization clinic that operated in Jackson until 2022. 

The immigration measure would require the state Department of Public Safety and law enforcement agencies operating county jails to enter into an agreement with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. 

The measure currently includes a clause that would require the Legislature to debate it further before it can become law. 

The House on the same day passed a bill that could make it more onerous for people without a driver’s license to register to vote, a proposal its author said would allow local elections officials to verify a person’s citizenship.

The Safeguard Honest Integrity in Elections for Lasting Democracy, or SHIELD, Act would require county registrars to conduct extra checks on people who try to register to vote without a driver’s license number. 

Under the bill, if someone tried to register and could not produce a license number, the clerk would need to verify whether the person appears in a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services database called SAVE. Government agencies use the federal database to verify an applicant’s immigration status or citizenship.

The bill would also require election officials to notify applicants flagged as non-citizens and require them to prove citizenship.

House Elections Chairman Noah Sanford, a Republican from Collins, said the bill he authored is necessary to ensure only U.S. citizens vote.

“The bill is designed to ensure that the people who vote are citizens like you and I,” Sanford said in response to questions from House Democrats.

Democrats said the bill would make registering to vote more costly and time-consuming for people who don’t have a driver’s license. They also said the bill would result in “voter suppression” and could even function as a “poll tax” because people might end up having to obtain extra documents, such as their birth certificate, to prove their citizenship.

The legislation in Mississippi arrives as the Trump administration pushes to “nationalize” elections with a federal bill that could potentially prevent millions of people from casting ballots.

The measures are several steps from becoming law, and each bill must pass the other legislative chamber in the Capitol before it could go to the governor for consideration.

House Speaker Jason White was not happy the Senate killed his expansive school choice bill, without even taking a full vote. 

Now House leaders appear to be sending a message to the other chamber: Most of the education bills passed by the Senate have been sent to two committees in the House, or “double-referred,” a tactic often used to kill bills or delay their passage and overhaul them. 

White said he is not trying to kill off Senate education measures — many of which mirror elements of the now-defunct House omnibus school choice bill. But Senate leaders this week took the double referral of their education bills as an indication otherwise.

Over the past six weeks, the two chambers of the Legislature have been warring over school choice, policies aimed at giving parents more power over their children’s education, usually by funding private schooling with public dollars. It’s been White’s top issue this session, with backing from numerous interest groups and the Trump White House. 

But educators statewide have opposed the move, and the Republican Senate leadership has been steadfast in its opposition to spending tax dollars on private schools.

The 500-page bill White authored, House Bill 2, would have greatly expanded school choice in Mississippi by establishing education savings accounts. These would allow parents to spend public money on private school tuition. 

But the Senate Education Committee, chaired by Republican Sen. Dennis DeBar of Leakesville, killed House Bill 2 after only 84 seconds of deliberation last week. 

READ MORE: ‘The bill dies today.’ Senate committee kills House school choice measure

While White denounced Senate leaders on social media last week after their decision to kill House Bill 2, he denied on Tuesday that he was trying to thwart passage of Senate education bills in response.

“It’s no way a response to House Bill 2,” he said. “If you were to go back and take the time and look at House bills that were dropped by House members, I don’t even know how many … but there were huge numbers that were double-referred.”

The double-referrals didn’t escape DeBar’s notice.

“All I can do is control what I can control,” DeBar said on Tuesday, and added that he hoped legislators could “all work together,” instead of devolving into infighting.

For a bill to become law, it must pass through its original chamber’s assigned committees and its full chamber, and then do the same in the opposite chamber. “Double-referring,” or sending a bill to multiple committees, is one tactic legislative leaders use to prevent a bill’s passage because the same version of the bill must pass all of those committees and the floor votes. If a bill is changed at all, the process begins anew. 

Both chambers’ leaders — the speaker in the House and the lieutenant governor in the Senate — assign bills to committees.

White recently told reporters that he’s considering all options to keep pushing for private school choice policies, so he could attempt to revive the education savings account legislation by inserting language in another education bill, potentially even one of the Senate’s.

Meanwhile, there does appear to be some tacit agreement between House and Senate leaders on allowing more school choice among public schools, usually called “open enrollment,” or “portability.”

Senate Bill 2002, which removes the veto ability of the home school district if a public school student requests a transfer elsewhere, is alive in the House. It’s one of three Senate education bills that have been passed by the Senate and assigned to only one committee in the House. 

A handful of other Senate education bills still await committee assignment in the House. 

Politics reporter Taylor Vance contributed to this story. 

It’s time to talk about what Mississippians do best, which is play and support college baseball. Mississippi State is a consensus top 5 team. Southern Miss is consistently a top 25 team and Rick says Ole Miss is underrated.

Stream all episodes here.

The construction industry has struggled since the Great Recession but now one of its main struggles is finding skilled workers. 

A bill passed by the state House on Monday proposes creating a fund to help schools with construction training programs and encouraging students to explore these careers. 

As written, the bill would divert 6.75% of contractor sales taxes to the new Construction Training Assistance Fund. The fund would be administered by Accelerate Mississippi, the state’s workforce development office. Accelerate would provide grants to public community colleges and K-12 schools to help provide construction training to students.

The bill’s author, Rep. Donnie Bell, a Republican from Fulton, said the bill would expose students to more opportunities and start them on a path to success. Bell and others point out that skilled workers, such as electricians and plumbers, are in high demand and can earn large salaries.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor estimates that employment for electricians will grow 9% annually through 2034. And the median annual salary for electricians and plumbers in Mississippi is over $57,000, higher than the state’s median household income of about $56,000. 

Skilled workers are especially in demand to build out the infrastructure needed for the state’s manufacturing and data center projects. In July 2025, there were 51,800 construction workers in Mississippi, up 2% from the previous year and 15% from Feb. 2020 according to a report from the Associated General Contractors of America.

At Monday’s Stennis Capitol Press Forum, Bill Cork, director of the state’s economic development agency, said construction jobs are in high demand with the companies he talks to.  

“Right now the most important skills we’re tracking are construction trades. If you believe the news reports and some of the advertising, we’re probably short 100,000 construction workers in Mississippi right now,” said Cork. 

Asked to describe Jim Poole, his close friend of six decades, Archie Manning paused, pregnantly. 

“I’m really struggling with Jim’s death,” he finally said.

After a few seconds of silence, Archie was back. “Jim was a rock,” he said. “He was solid – so smart and just utterly dependable. You always knew what you were going to get with Jim. You could always count on him. Nicest guy ever, as good a friend as I’ve ever had, as good a friend as anyone could ever hope to have.”

Poole, a big, strapping tight end, caught many of the passes Manning threw at Ole Miss. They had met as high school juniors, Jim from Oxford, Archie from Drew. That was 60 years ago, They remained close friends until Jim’s death Sunday following a short illness. James E. Poole Jr. was 76.

Poole and Manning were members of a group of former Ole Miss football players who called themselves “The Dirty Thirty,” a name that requires an explanation.

“When we got to Ole Miss there were 64 of us freshmen football players, if you can believe that,” Manning said. “Sixty-four! There were 40 of us on scholarship and 24 walk-ons. Then, Coach Wobble (Wobble Davidson, the freshman coach) got hold of us. Let me tell you, that was a gut check. He almost killed us, and some probably wished they were dead.  People were quitting right and left. By the end of that freshman season, there were 30 of us left, the dirty 30.”

Poole knew what he was getting into. He had grown up at Ole Miss going to football practices. His dad, Buster, and uncle, Ray, both coached under John Vaught. His Uncle Barney had been an Ole Miss All American who caught the passes of Charlie Conerly. The Poole family is a huge part of Ole Miss lore. Naturally, Poole Drive runs through the center of campus.

They were huge men, the Pooles were. James E. “Buster” Poole, Jim’s dad, was the oldest of the Ole Miss Pooles who grew up near Gloster in Amite County in remote southwest Mississippi near the sandy banks of the Homochitto River. The community’s only school only went through the 11th grade, so Buster boarded in Natchez for a year to get his high school diploma. He returned home for Christmas and told his younger brothers, “Boys, I have found a game we can play.” 

That game was football, and, boy, they could play it. All were tall, broad-shouldered, swift and country strong. All three of the brothers played end. All three also played baseball and basketball at Ole Miss. All played football professionally. They began a long line of Pooles and Poole in-laws at Ole Miss. At last count, the Poole family has earned more than 50 Ole Miss varsity athletic letters.

Jim Poole earned three, only because freshmen couldn’t play for the varsity back in 1968. In Vaught’s offensive system, tight ends caught passes, but they also had to block. Jim excelled at both.

“Jim had great hands,” Archie said. “If he ever dropped a pass, I don’t remember it. He was just so dependable. He just always did his job and did it well. You know I always told my boys that what separates the great players from just good ones is that the great ones play their best against the best opponents. That was Jim. He was good against everybody but he was great against the LSUs, the Alabamas, the Tennessees and in the bowl games. He had big games when it counted most.”

Older fans all remember the Alabama-Ole Miss shootout in 1969 when Ole Miss rolled up more than 600 yards of offense only to lose 33-32. Poole caught six passes for 72 yards. That same season, Ole Miss came from 11 points down to defeat LSU in Jackson. Poole caught eight passes for 77 yards. When Manning was the MVP of the 1970 Sugar Bowl, Poole caught seven for 72. In the 1971 Gator Bowl against Auburn, Poole caught nine passes for 111 yards and a touchdown.

Said Skipper Jernigan, an outstanding guard on those Rebel teams, “When you know you can count on somebody it means a lot. We knew we could always count on Jim Poole.”

Poole, the Oxford native, made sure his fellow freshmen Jernigan, Manning and Billy Van Devender learned the essentials of living in what then was a sleepy little college town. That included the hot fudge sundae at Leslie’s Drug Store, playing eight-ball at Purvis’s Pool Hall and eating home-cooked meals from Jim’s mom, Anna.

Jernigan, Manning, Van Devender and Poole remained especially close in the decades since. Poole’s death clearly has been a gut punch, far worse than Coach Wobble ever delivered, to the other three.

They all speak of Jim’s loyalty, his wit, his faith and his giving nature. In his later life and especially since he retired as a highly successful CPA, Poole volunteered much of his time working in prison ministry, specifically through Kairos Prison Ministry. Earle Burkley, a first cousin, introduced him to the volunteer work and says Poole dedicated himself to trying to improve the lives of convicts, primarily at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl.

“Jim was always big on helping less fortunate folks any way he could,” Burkley said. “Not a whole lot of people want to do that kind of work in prisons, but Jim tried it and saw he could help. And so he did it. That was just Jim.”

•••

Visitation will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, with the funeral in the sanctuary at 11:30 a.m. Burial will be at 4 p.m. at Oxford Memorial Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Gateway Rescue Mission (P.O. Box 3763, Jackson, MS 39207) or online to Kairos Prison Ministry.

Civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer’s Presidential Medal of Freedom is now on display at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.

The Medal of Freedom was unveiled on display in the “I Question America” gallery Tuesday by Hamer’s niece, Marilyn Mays, and cousin, Hinds County Tax Collector Eddie Fair.

Hamer, who died in 1977, posthumously received the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2025 from then-President Joe Biden. 

It was announced Hamer’s family donated the medal to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History last October.

Mays said there is no better place for the medal to be than where Hamer lived and worked for equality.

“She got national acclaim, but the roots of everything she did, and the motivation for what she did, was Mississippi,” she said.

Michael Morris, director of the Two Mississippi Museums, said Hamer is “a figure of international significance.”

“I hope that our school kids, as well as visitors from around the world … learn from Fannie Lou Hamer this notion of dignity, this notion that every human being is entitled to respect,” he said. He also hopes young people learn from Hamer the power of their voices and the importance of political participation.

“On paper, she doesn’t look like the kind of person that could change the world, but she defies our notions about who superheroes are,” Morris said.

Neither Fair nor Mays realized how significant Hamer was until they became adults, but she became a key inspiration in both of their lives.

Fair said Hamer was a major influence on his decision to enter public service. 

“It was a big influence because I wanted to do something to represent her, to represent the people back in Ruleville, to represent what each and every one of them did to fight to get us to the place that we are today,” he said.

Mays said Hamer inspired her to be part of integrating her hometown’s high school, attend Mississippi State University and enter corporate America.

Hamer was born in Montgomery County, Mississippi, in 1917. She was the youngest of 20 children, and her parents were sharecroppers. 

In 1962, after attending one of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s voting rights meetings, Hamer and some of her neighbors traveled to Indianola to register to vote. Hamer was one of only two from their group who got to fill out an application and take the literacy test. She refused to retract her application when her landlord and employer found out, which cost her her job and home. 

She became a field secretary for SNCC in 1963. That year, she and several other activists were beaten in a jail in Winona. The assault left Hamer partially blind and with permanent kidney damage.

Hamer continued her work, becoming a key part of the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project in 1964. She co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, even running for Congress as the party’s candidate, but lost the primary to the incumbent Democrat. MFDP went on to challenge the seating of Mississippi’s all-white Democratic delegation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

While there, Hamer testified to the Democratic Convention’s Credentials Committee about her experiences with racism in Mississippi, including being beaten and forcibly sterilized. This became known as her “I Question America” speech. 

President Lyndon B. Johnson called a press conference at the same time to prevent networks from broadcasting her speech. Despite this, her entire testimony was aired on the evening news nationwide.

Democratic Party officials offered the  MFDP two at-large seats and a promise the next convention wouldn’t allow segregated delegations. President Johnson and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. supported this compromise, but Hamer did not. A group of MFDP delegates was seated at the 1968 convention.

Hamer co-founded the Freedom Farms Corporation in 1969, and continued working as an activist and public speaker until her death in 1977.

In 2022, her great niece, Monica Land, produced a documentary about her life, “Fannie Lou Hamer’s America.” 

Land said the family chose to donate the medal so it could be shared publicly and encourage visitors to learn more about Hamer’s life, legacy and the sacrifices she made in the fight for voting rights.

“I am so happy we were able to gift this award to the museum and to the people of Mississippi,” Land said. “Aunt Fannie Lou loved Mississippi and, hopefully, this donation will spark or further interest in her life and all that she fought so hard to accomplish for all people – not just Black people.’”

A federal court is reviewing proposed alternatives to a rate increase for customers in Jackson, home to one of the most historically troubled water and sewer systems in the country and where over 1 in 4 people live in poverty.

JXN Water, the city’s third-party, court-appointed interim manager, argues it has no choice but to raise rates as it owes money to contractors doing daily upkeep of the infrastructure.

Over the past year U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate — who appointed JXN Water’s Ted Henifin to the role of third-party manager — has held a dozen hearings to interrogate that assumption.

Wingate chased several leads to uncover other revenue: What happened to the Siemens settlement funds? What if the city fixed the leaks at the zoo? What about the thousands of people still not paying or being billed?

At each turn, JXN Water gave the judge the same response: None of those avenues would change the need to increase rates. The utility says it needs about $20 million more a year to afford its daily operations as well as pay off debt the city of Jackson took on prior to the 2022 federal takeover.

Still, Jackson officials and a group of intervenors in the case — a team of lawyers from Forward Justice, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and ACLU of Mississippi — argue JXN Water should hold off on raising rates.

On Friday, the intervenors submitted to the court a report from a utility expert arguing there are other ways to produce the revenue JXN Water says it needs. Brendan Larkin-Connolly, a Maryland-based economist with a focus on utility finances, prepared the study.

The report’s main suggestion was to restructure the billing system so that those who use more water contribute a higher percentage to JXN Water’s collections.

The average three-person household uses about 10 hundred cubic feet, or CCF, per month, the report says. JXN Water, though, bills everyone who consumes 0 to 50 CCF at the same rate, making it harder for those who use less water to save money. By creating a new tier for those who use more than 10 CCF a month, JXN Water could balance charging lower-usage customers less while charging higher-usage customers more.

In the utility’s response Monday, JXN Water attorney Paul Calamita panned the report as “late to the game” and “unhelpful.”

“We would have welcomed a silver bullet that mooted the need for a rate increase,” Calamita wrote in a court filing. “Alas, because Intervenors’ Rate Report offers no viable alternative to raising the revenue that JXN Water needs today to remain financially viable and to pay the City’s debt service, we urge the Court to approve the proposed rate increase.”

While Larkin-Connolly’s study shows how this would help JXN Water collect more revenue, his projections also rely on two other avenues — which JXN Water says it’s already pursuing — to fill the $20 million gap.

One of those is collecting money from the roughly 4,000 properties that receive water but don’t get billed or have a meter. But while the utility is going through those properties, doing so will take time because a worker needs to visit each property to add them to their billing system, Calamita said.

The other is to charge more to the 4,200 customers outside the city limits, such as in Byram, who not only pay a lower rate for consumption but who also aren’t charged the $40 a month fixed fee many in Jackson see. While JXN Water says it plans to phase in equal billing for those customers, Calamita said it will take 12 to 18 months to get approval through the state Public Service Commission.

Moreover, increasing charges for higher-usage customers could disproportionately impact renters, he added. Because apartments in the same building often share a meter, their consumption is billed altogether rather than for each unit.

Jackson City Attorney Drew Martin wrote on Monday that the city needs more time to review Larkin-Connolly’s analysis, while adding that the suggestion to create a new rate tier “seems to make more sense.”

The House passed a pair of bills on Tuesday that would reshape laws surrounding the sale of alcohol in Mississippi.

The first would allow the direct shipment of liquor to Mississippians’ homes, and the second would let local authorities pass ordinances allowing the sale of alcohol on Sundays.

House Bill 669 would allow the direct shipment of liquor. Rep. Hank Zuber, a Republican from Ocean Springs who chairs the House State Affairs Committee, said the law would bring Mississippi’s alcohol laws “into the 21st century.” 

The legislation comes after Mississippi legalized the direct shipment of some wines in 2025. Supporters fought for over a decade to get the Legislature to agree to such a measure, and it was signed by Gov. Tate Reeves last year. Rep. Brent Powell, a Republican from Brandon, said his proposal to do the same for liquor is modeled after the wine shipment legalization, using the same permitting rules that the law sets out.

The bill would also enact a 15.5% tax on each sale of “distilled spirits” made to a Mississippi resident. It defines distilled spirits as any beverage containing more than 6% of alcohol by weight produced by the distillation of fermented grain, starch, molasses or sugar.

Similar measures in the past have attracted opposition from those concerned that allowing for the direct shipment of alcohol could exacerbate alcohol abuse or hurt sales at brick-and-mortar stores.

“In my 40 years as a lawyer, I’ve made a lot of money on DUIs, so keep up the good work,” said Rep. Bob Evans, a Democrat from Monticello who voted against the bill, which passed 75-32.

House Bill 672, also authored by Powell, would give local authorities in “wet” jurisdictions, or areas of the state that legally permit alcohol sales, the power to allow permitted package retailers to sell alcoholic beverages on Sunday.

Current state law forbids liquor stores from operating on Sundays, a legacy of historical “blue laws” rooted in religious traditions. Package stores are allowed to operate from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Monday through Saturday. This bill would change that if entities such as counties, municipalities and tribes pass an ordinance allowing the sale of alcohol on Sunday, including both wine and liquor.

That bill passed 62-47.

Both measures will now head to the Senate for consideration.

University of Mississippi leaders plan to spend up to $10 million on tree removal and other debris cleanup on the Oxford campus because of an ice storm that caused widespread damage in the northern part of the state. 

On Monday, the IHL Board of Trustees unanimously approved increasing the amount of the university’s contract with Looks Great Services, a landscape service based in Columbia, to ensure the cleanup can be completed. The board, which oversees the state’s public universities, has to approve contracts that exceed $2 million.

Ole Miss will pay for initial services and seek reimbursements from other funding sources including Federal Emergency Management Agency, Mississippi Emergency Management Agency and insurance, according to IHL. Ole Miss officials are still assessing the storm damage, and the final storm recovery costs are unclear.

“Snow, ice, power outages and blocked roads were just a few of the obstacles that stood before some of our universities including Ole Miss, Mississippi Valley State and Delta State University,” said Gee Ogletree, IHL board president. 

Classes and campus activities resumed Monday at the Oxford campus, two weeks after Winter Storm Fern coated roadways and power lines with ice, causing outages of water and power. UM college students were left reeling with the storm’s aftermath as residence halls and other campus buildings lost power throughout the week. Some students also struggled to find food. 

The storm damaged flooring in the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, but the majority of campus buildings are safe, open and operating as normal, university spokesman Jacob Batte said. There is not yet a timeline for completing the cleanup efforts.  

Despite the overall storm damage, nearly 95% of the university’s Oxford campus trees survived the winter storm, Chancellor Glenn Boyce said in a letter to Ole Miss stakeholders last week. 

The university’s tree canopy, including oak trees in the Grove at the center of campus, is a key part of the campus character and landscape design.  

Other schools in northern Mississippi, including Mississippi Valley State University, Delta State University and local community colleges also sustained storm damage that resulted in extended campus closures. 

At Mississippi Valley State, storm damage included a tree limb breaking the window of an academic building. 

“We anticipated the power outage but not the tremendous amount of tree damage,” Michael Switzer, MVSU’s vice president of facilities management and capital projects, said in an email. “With a storm like this, you never know exactly what the impact will be.” 

The university’s grounds crew and contractors are working to clear the debris, Switzer said. 

Lexington police have a new interim chief after the first appointed leader resigned less than a month into the job. 

The city’s Board of Aldermen appointed Kenneth Gee as interim chief Thursday following a special meeting. 

Alderman Isaac Lindsey shared news on Facebook last week about Gee’s appointment and the resignation of former interim chief, Robert Kirklin. Some commenters on the post raised concerns about Gee’s hiring and a track record with other police departments and jobs. 

The board plans to meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday so community members can share their thoughts with city officials. 

Prior to his appointment, Gee had served as an officer with the Lexington police. He was also a Republican candidate for the mayor of Jackson, where he is from. Police certification records show he also worked in Holmes County as an officer with the Durant and Tchula police departments and as acting chief in West. Gee also lists experience as a reserve officer with the Yazoo County Sheriff’s Department on his LinkedIn page.

The city expects to continue the search for a permanent police chief over the next 60 days.

Mayor Percy Washington said Kirklin previously worked for the Lexington police and retired with the department. He chose to leave the interim position due to challenges with pay and conflicts with his retirement benefits.

The Board of Aldermen had appointed Kirklin during a Jan. 10 special meeting following the dismissal of former chief Charles Henderson, whose police certification was suspended and is under review. That suspension prevents him from holding any law enforcement position. 

Henderson’s alleged violation of law enforcement ethics happened in November 2024 while he worked for the Jackson Police Department. Details about the incident are not immediately known. 

His departure also coincided with the board’s vote to adopt police reforms recommended by the U.S. Department of Justice. 

Years earlier, allegations surfaced of Lexington police’s discriminatory policing practices, excessive force and retaliation against critics, and some resulted in lawsuits. Henderson became chief in 2022 after the former chief, Sam Dobbins, was fired after a leaked recording captured him using racial and homophobic slurs when describing how he used force while on the job. 

The Justice Department opened a pattern and practice investigation into the department in 2023 and released its investigation report less than a year later, finding constitutional violations and a practice of jailing people for unpaid fines without determining whether they could afford to pay them. 

Leo Bevilacqua contributed reporting