Police report: Drunk trooper used racial slur

SPRINGFIELD — Witnesses said a state police officer assigned to protect the governor was staggering drunk and used a racial slur when he got into a St. Patrick’s Day bar fight, according to a newly disclosed police report on the incident.

Kenneth Snider left the state police soon after the altercation in the early hours of March 18 and also resigned his posts as head of the Macoupin County Democratic Party and president of the Carlinville School Board.

“Kenny could not walk straight and was the drunkest I have ever seen him,” one eyewitness told police, The (Springfield) State Journal-Register reported Thursday.

A bartender at the Anchor Inn told police Snider bumped into a black college student, then pushed the student. The bartender told police that Snider said something unintelligible that angered the student, who then punched Snider, who went to a hospital for treatment.

The bartender said that Snider shouted “inappropriate things” in the bar, according to the report. Two other witnesses told police that Snider said, “This is a white man’s bar,” and one of those witnesses reported that Snider said “the n-word.”

Snider told police he had been punched for no reason.

Prosecutors declined to pursue charges against Snider or the student.

The newspaper could not reach Snider for comment. Calls to a telephone listing for Snider were not answered Thursday morning.

Carlinville police refused to give any details immediately after the incident. Police this week gave a copy of the police report to The Macoupin County Enquirer-Democrat, but Police Chief David Haley on Wednesday refused to give a copy to The State Journal-Register, telling the newspaper to file a formal request under the state Freedom of Information Act.

“I’ve got five days to respond,” Haley said. “I’ll do it as soon as I can. I am very busy. That’s the way it’s going to be.”

The newspaper then obtained the report from a source outside the police department.