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Police chief Skylar Dore rants on Facebook, and a small town hears echoes of its ugly past

Michael E. Miller | Sydney Morning Herald (http://www.smh.com.au/) (Australia) | 17 September 2016

http://www.smh.com.au/world/police-chief-skylar-dore-rants-on-facebook-and-a-small-town-hears-echoes-of-its-ugly-past-20160917-griklg.html

Extract: Jonesville: Sunday sermons had just ended when residents of this river town learned that a lone black gunman had killed three police officers in Baton Rouge. Before the news could sink in, a profane message appeared on Facebook.

"Hey Mr Bulls--- president," it began. "When are you going to grow a f---ing pair. And tell it like it is. These are terrorist. That have declared f---ing war on my brother. (White police officers) enough is enough."


The author was Skylar Dore, the white chief of police in Jonesville, Louisiana.

The post instantly cleaved the community in two. Many black residents, who make up 70 per cent of Jonesville, saw it as a racist rant. Some whites defended Dore, saying he had the right to speak his mind. Two days later, the majority-black town council fired the young chief.

If his post had stirred anger, then his firing provoked outrage. Dore received encouragement, even employment offers, from across the country. But he also received death threats. When a friend organised a march on Dore's behalf, the sheriff persuaded him to call it off for fear it could turn into a shootout.

Today, Jonesville remains on edge. Some whites think the town's black officials are putting political correctness ahead of public safety. Some blacks see ugly hints of the racial violence that has long haunted the Deep South in Dore's profane post and the online debates that followed.

Dore says he is not a racist. He says he is fighting for his First Amendment rights.

"I was upset with the President. Quite frankly, I still am," he said, saying President Barack Obama failed to act aggressively against black nationalist "terrorists," such as the Baton Rouge shooter, Gavin Long. "I'm a police officer. I'm a chief. But I'm also an American citizen, and I have just as much rights as any other American citizen."

Dore's termination made news statewide. Within hours, he was inundated on Facebook with messages of support and job offers from sympathetic police departments in several states.

He also received "probably 50 different death threats," he said.

"It's a shame those whackos didn't get you rather than [the] other officers," one message said.

In Jonesville, his firing divided neighbours and co-workers along racial lines. People who once said hello to one another now looked the other way.

Tillman Jolly, a white carpenter whose Facebook page includes a photo of a gun atop a Bible, urged people to march to town hall and demand Dore's reinstatement. Jolly thought Dore's post had been "tough but fair" and that Jonesville had axed its best police chief over political correctness.

"The people in charge of Jonesville are 90 per cent black," Jolly said. "It pissed them off that he bashed their president."