Four Oklahoma Officials Called To Resign After Racist Remarks Surface
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Oklahoma’s governor Kevin Stitt wants four McCurtain County officials to resign from their positions after a recording of their racist remarks surfaced. In the audio, which is said to have been recorded illegally, the county officials allegedly speak of “hanging” Black people and digging holes for two Oklahoma McCurtain Gazette-News reporters.
On Sunday (April 16), Stitt called for the resignations of McCurtain County Sheriff Kevin Clardy, Captain Alicia Manning, District 2 Commissioner Mark Jennings, and Jail Administrator Larry Hendrix.
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“I am both appalled and disheartened to hear of the horrid comments made by officials in McCurtain County,” Gov. Stitt said per AP News. “There is simply no place for such hateful rhetoric in the state of Oklahoma, especially by those that serve to represent the community through their respective office.”
Bruce Willingham, publisher of the McCurtain Gazette-News, admitted that he left a voice-activated recorder inside the county commissioner meeting room following suspicion that the group of officials were in violation of the state’s Open Meeting Act. Chris Willingham, a reporter for the paper, is Bruce’s son.
The newspaper released a portion of the audio transcript on Friday night (April 14), sending shock and anger through the county of McCurtain. It details an alleged commission meeting that took place on March 6, 2023 with dialect from Clardy, Manning, Jennings, Hendrix, and a woman name Heather. In the multiple conversations, the participants are cited saying “barbecuing” body parts, “hanging” Black people, digging “two deep holes” for Gazette writers Bruce and Chris Willingham, and also hiring “two or three hitmen.”
“I know where two deep holes are dug if you ever need them,” Jennings reportedly said to Clardy and Manning, as the sheriff replied, “I’ve got an excavator.” The District 2 Commissioner also allegedly stated he knows “two or three hit men” in Louisiana that are “very quiet guys.” He then goes on to make racist and hurtful remarks about Black people.
“I’m gonna tell you something,” he started to tell Clardy, per the transcript. “If it was back in the day, when Alan Marshton would take a damn black guy and whoop their ass and throw him in the cell? I’d run for fu**king sheriff. Take them down to Mud Creek and hang them up with a damn rope. But you can’t do that anymore. They got more rights than we got.”
Bruce, who’s already felt tension between the newspaper and Oklahoma’s sheriff’s department, stated that local officials from the audio transcript were upset about “stories we’ve run that cast the sheriff’s office in an unfavorable light.”
According to AP, the newspaper has an ongoing lawsuit against the sheriff’s office for an alleged wrongful death of Oklahoma citizen Bobby Barrick. He died at a hospital in March 2022 after McCurtain County authorities shot him with a stun gun. The police refused to release body cam footage to the publication.
“I talked on two different occasions to our attorneys to make sure I wasn’t doing anything illegal,” Bruce Willingham said about recording and releasing audio from the commissioner’s March 6 meeting.
He’s also claimed to have turned over his recordings to the FBI and Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office. A spokesman for Attorney General Gentner Drummond stated that the audio recording is currently being investigated.
Since the release of the unsettling sentiments, Oklahoma residents and more have expressed their outrage, as citizens rallied outside of the McCurtain County Courthouse on Monday (April 17), in protest of resignation. As of July 2022, the county’s population was counted at 30,931 people with a demographic of 63.5% White and 8% Black.
“The whole conversation seemed deplorable,” Joey Senat, a journalism professor at Oklahoma State University said. “I was shocked as I assume most people were not only about the comments about journalists, but the racist comments regarding African Americans. Joking doesn’t excuse that.”
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Senat added that under Oklahoma law, the audio recording could be accepted as legal if it happened in a place where officials would not expect privacy.
State Rep. Eddy Dempsey, a Republican who represents the area in the Oklahoma House, said the recorded comments don’t reflect the values of his constituents and echoed Stitt’s call for the four people involved in the conversation to resign.
“All my life, we’ve always said we don’t get enough recognition in southeast Oklahoma,” Rep. Eddy Dempsey said. “But we don’t need this kind of recognition.”
The sheriff has claimed his innocence stating that the incident is “amongst the most difficult and disruptive in recent memory.” He also alleges that the recording was altered and involves many other victims.
