#Florida park removes name of police chief who once booted Jackie Robinson

A Florida park named after a police chief who notoriously forced baseball legend Jackie Robinson out of a minor league game in 1946 has been renamed.

The Sanford City Commission voted unanimously on Monday to remove the name of its former police chief, Roy G. Williams, from the park and change it to Elliot Avenue Park, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reports.

Williams, who served as the city’s top cop from the 1920s through the 1960s, told Robinson to leave the park on April 7, 1946, as he played in Sanford for the Montreal Royals against the Saint Paul Saints, according to the city’s website.

“Robinson played the first inning but at the top of the second inning, the Sanford police chief arrived at the field and ordered Robinson removed from the game,” the website reads, noting that the incident occurred amid segregation in the US.

Williams, who later died in 1983, told the team’s manager that Robinson would need to leave the stadium or the game would be called off, claiming the city did not allow integrated teams to use municipal-owned fields, city documents show.

Robinson had arrived in Sanford in March 1946 to practice with the Royals — the AAA International League affiliate of the Brooklyn Dodgers — after being signed by Dodgers president Branch Rickey, according to the city’s website.

Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers a year later, breaking the MLB color barrier on April 15, 1947, en route to a Hall of Fame career.

In 1997, on the 50^th anniversary of Robinson’s historic feat, city officials issued a proclamation apologizing for the 1946 incident.

“It was a bad thing,” City Commissioner Whitey Eckstein said at the time, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal. “We shouldn’t have done it. We need to make it right with the Jackie Robinson family.”