Arkansas state trooper resigns after wife's divorce filings expose racist text messages

An Arkansas state trooper walked away from his badge last month after his estranged wife filed dozens of his own text messages, laced with racial slurs and what she called "white supremacist" beliefs, as evidence in their divorce case.

Michael Austin Kennedy left the Arkansas State Police on May 15, weeks after his wife, Alana, included the messages in a complaint seeking sole custody of their two children. The couple had been married for 12 years.

The messages, as described in the divorce filings, paint a picture that no law enforcement agency can afford to defend. And Kennedy himself appears to know it. In his own filing on May 21, he acknowledged the racist statements but called them "outdated," claiming they predated therapy and spiritual guidance he sought through their church.

What the filings describe

The texts allegedly sent by Kennedy to his wife included slurs targeting Black people, Hispanic people, and Muslims. The New York Post reported that the most recent messages dated to January 2025, not some distant chapter of Kennedy's past, but barely five months before he resigned.

In one exchange, Kennedy allegedly told his wife she didn't "f***ing hate them enough," referring to a group of people, and said that what "clogged up" their son's toilet "is worth more to me than any of them." In another, he reportedly blamed being late to bring his son a drink on Black residents in Little Rock, using a racial slur twice in the same sentence.

Other messages allegedly referenced beliefs about banishing Muslims from America. Kennedy also reportedly sent selfies posing with detained Hispanic individuals, bragging about a new "trophy."

That last detail matters. If accurate, it suggests Kennedy's views didn't stay in his living room, they followed him onto the job, where he carried a badge and the authority of the state.

Alana's custody complaint

Alana filed her complaint more than a month before Kennedy's departure from the force. She sought sole custody of the couple's two children, with visitation rights for Kennedy, contingent on his completion of what the filing described as a "parenting course in order to limit the hatred and prejudice that he has towards people."

The complaint accused Kennedy of holding views that would "poison the minds of the children" and "instill this same hatred" in them. Alana wrote that she "currently fear[s]" for the children "due to his constant spewing of hate and irrational thoughts."

She also accused Kennedy of abusing his position as a state trooper, though the filings do not appear to detail specific incidents beyond the selfie claims.

Divorce proceedings can surface all manner of accusations, and contested custody fights are adversarial by nature. Bitter divorces involving law enforcement are not new. But Kennedy's own May 21 filing did not deny the messages. He acknowledged the racist statements and offered mitigation, not a rebuttal.

Kennedy's response: 'Outdated'

Kennedy's filing characterized the texts as "outdated" and said they preceded his decision to seek therapy and spiritual guidance at the couple's church. That framing asks the court, and the public, to treat messages from as recently as January 2025 as relics of a reformed man.

Whether a court finds that persuasive in a custody dispute remains to be seen. No ruling on Alana's custody request has been reported.

What is clear is that the Arkansas State Police did not wait around for a verdict. Kennedy left the agency on May 15, just six days before he filed his own response. Whether that departure was a resignation, a forced exit, or something in between is not specified in the available filings. The Arkansas State Police has not issued a public statement about Kennedy's departure.

A law enforcement family

Kennedy's father, Lt. Col. Mike Kennedy, serves as deputy director of the Arizona State Police. The elder Kennedy's role adds an uncomfortable layer to the story, though nothing in the filings suggests he was aware of or involved in his son's conduct.

The case raises a straightforward question for every agency that employs armed officers with arrest authority: how do you catch this before a divorce filing does it for you? When misconduct by public servants surfaces only through unrelated legal proceedings, it suggests that internal oversight either missed the problem or never looked.

What remains unanswered

Several questions hang over this case. Was Kennedy ever investigated by the Arkansas State Police before his wife's filing? Did the agency learn about the messages from the divorce complaint, from media inquiries, or from some other channel? What was Kennedy's rank, assignment, and length of service?

The court and case number for the divorce proceedings have not been publicly identified. The ages of the two children are not known. And it remains unclear whether any of the people Kennedy allegedly photographed and bragged about detaining were subjected to improper treatment during those encounters.

Those are not idle questions. If a trooper was using traffic stops or immigration-related detentions as opportunities to collect "trophies," that conduct could expose the state to legal liability and undermine public trust in every legitimate stop made by Arkansas officers.

The real cost

Conservatives rightly defend law enforcement. The overwhelming majority of officers serve honorably, often at great personal cost. But defending the institution means demanding that the institution police itself. An officer who sends slur-filled texts to his own wife, poses for selfies with detained people, and treats his badge as a license for bigotry is not an asset to law enforcement. He is a liability, to his department, to his fellow officers, and to every community he was sworn to protect.

Kennedy's departure was the minimum acceptable outcome. The harder work, figuring out how he served as long as he did without anyone in his chain of command catching wind of his views, belongs to the Arkansas State Police. Silence from the agency is not reassuring.

When the trash takes itself out, you still have to ask how it piled up in the first place.