The former police chief of Atlanta’s Forest Park suburb has filed a lawsuit against the city alleging he was fired because he was white. Dwayne Hobbs, whom the city fired in 2018 following accusations of racial profiling, filed suit in U.S. District Court claiming the real reason he was fired was because Forest Park wanted a Black police chief. Forest Park Mayor Angelyne Butler called the allegation an “absolute, complete and utter farce.” City leaders later said a police squad overseen by Hobbs had been stalking two city council members over suspicions they took part in illegal drugs and voter fraud. It included following and photographing them, putting cameras on poles near their homes and going through their trash.

The local NAACP chapter president defended Hobbstermination. “It wasn’t that they wanted a Black police chief,” Cheryl Synamon Baldwin said, having spoken to both Black and white city residents. “They wanted a police chief who was fair and honest.”