The fired veteran Forest Park Police Chief, Dwayne Hobbs, has filed suit at the US District Court in Atlanta, claiming that the real reason he was axed is that he was white.
The suit mentioned Nathaniel Clark, a black man, who was hired in May 2019 as Hobbs’ replacement in Forest Park, the northern Clayton County city of 20,000, located nine miles south of Atlanta, and which has a predominantly African American population.
The document stressed that another eight white colleagues of Hobbs were fired, also pointing to the renaming of two city buildings named after white people.
Forest Park Mayor Angelyne Butler, for her part, told The Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) on Wednesday that she couldn't comment in detail on the litigation, describing "[Hobbs]' allegation" as "an absolute, complete and utter farce".
City Council members Dabouze Antoine, Latresa Akins-Wells, and Kimberly James, in turn, said in a written interview with the AJC that they voted in favour of firing Hobbs but that they "never said we wanted a black chief".
"We did a national search so we didn't know what colour they would be. We just knew it was time for a change", they pointed out.
AJC also cited Cheryl Synamon Baldwin of the Clayton County National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter as saying that she had spoken to some Forest Park residents who claimed that they had witnessed racial profiling by the police under Hobbs.
Baldwin supported the City Council's move to axe Hobbs, saying, "it wasn't that they wanted a black police chief; […] they wanted a police chief who was fair and honest".
His lawsuit comes as the US has been rocked by a wave of protests against racism and police brutality since late May, when a black man, George Floyd, was killed by a white police officer while in custody in Minneapolis.
Since then, cities all over the US have seen massive demonstrations, some of which have turned violent and resulted in arson, looting, and clashes with heavily armed police.