A racial remark has led to the resignation of Fort Smith Police Chief Kevin Lindsey, the Southwest Times Record newspaper in Fort Smith reports.
Exactly what he said hasn’t yet been revealed. This much has been reported:
“It’s not that he called anybody a name, and he didn’t use the ‘n’ word,” Dingman said. “I would describe it as an inappropriate comment of a racial context. He made the comment to some individuals who were still in the meeting with him. Someone outside the meeting room overheard it. It happened to be a city employee, a female of color.”
Dingman said the female employee reported the remark to her supervisor, Information & Technology Services Director Russell Gibson, who relayed the incident to administration. Dingman said he learned of the remark the next day, March 3, then spoke with Lindsey on March 4.
“He acknowledged it, owned it, took accountability for it,” Dingman said. “By the time I had spoke with him, to my understanding, he had already recounted it with the two individuals he was speaking with and also apologized to the person who overheard it. There’s no deflection of it by any means.
“That led to the resignation letter (Thursday).”
It matters when people in charge of enforcing the law speak disparagingly of a class of people. Their lives matter, you might say.
Lindsey will leave the job Monday, rather than in April as his resignation letter originally said.