OK County Leaders Very Disappointed Someone Secretly Recorded Their Private Pro-Lynching Conversation

They also gabbed about assassinating reporters.

Oklahoma's (Republican!) Gov. Kevin Stitt called for the resignation of four top officials in rural McCurtain County after an audio recording emerged where they spewed racist bile so repulsive the Klu Klux Klan would've rescinded their memberships.

“I am both appalled and disheartened to hear of the horrid comments made by officials in McCurtain County,” the governor told The Washington Post. “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. I will not stand idly by while this takes place.”

After a public meeting last month, Sheriff Kevin Clardy, County Commissioner Mark Jennings, sheriff's investigator Alicia Manning, and jail administrator Larry Hendrix stuck around and chatted amongst themselves without realizing they were being secretly recorded. The McCurtain Gazette-News publisher Bruce Willingham had left a voice-activated recorder in the room because he believed (correctly) that the officials were conducting business after the meeting had ended, which violates the state's Open Meeting Act.

The Gazette-News   published the recording online, and it's intense. These thugs openly longed for the days when you could freely lynch Black people and discussed assassinating a journalist, who if Black might've fallen into the "why can't we lynch Black people anymore?" rant.

PREVIOUSLY:

 Another Racist Cop Foiled By Newfangled Tape Recording Technology 

 LA City Council Pres Resigns After Leaked Audio Reveals She's Suuuuuper Racist 

According to the Gazette-News , Sheriff Clardy updated the board on a deadly fire that occurred four days previously. A 43-year-old Black woman had died after rushing back into the flames to save her two dogs. This was apparently a source of levity for these racist ghouls.

TRIGGER WARNING (OBVIOUSLY):

CLARDY: So we get her in the body bag and Kyler goes, you do know what we gotta do now, right? Faith goes, no, what? He goes, you gotta pre-heat the oven 350 degrees, leave her in there for 15 minutes. And she went (vomit sounds) (laughter). Bless her heart. It was… and then the medical examiner asked her, said hey we're fixing to go eat. And he looked her in the face and said you wanna go with me and go eat barbecue?

That was the most sensitive segment of their racist diatribe.

Here's the part where the sheriff and county commissioner reflect on the good old days of lynchings.

JENNINGS: It’s like somebody wanting this job, they don’t realize, like your job. I heard it the other day, said I heard two or 12 people were going for sheriff. I said fuck, let's get 20. They don’t have a goddamn clue what they’re getting into. Not this day and age. I’m gonna tell you something. If it was back in the day, when that when Alan Marston would take a damn black guy and whoop their ass and throw him in the cell? I’d run for fucking sheriff.

CLARDY: Yeah. Well, It’s not like that no more.

JENNINGS: I know. 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.

It's very revealing that Jennings thinks Black people have extra-special super rights just because white people can't lynch us ... in theory. Also, just how old are Jennings and Clardy? It's not like they're racist vampires who were present when a white mob lynched Henry Argo in 1930. 

I guess it wouldn't surprise me if they were lynching Black people in Oklahoma while "Oops, I Did It Again" was topping the charts, but that's still depressing. Alan Marston was the sheriff in 1980, though, so the Department of Justice should perhaps look into any contemporaneous unsolved murders involving Black people.

The recording was made hours after Gazette-News reporter Chris Willingham filed a lawsuit against the sheriff’s office, Manning, and the Board of County Commissioners for defamation. The group openly discussed“beating, killing and burying” Willingham and his father, Bruce Willingham. Both men have been advised to leave town.

Not surprisingly, Sheriff Clardy is not resigning in disgrace. Instead, the McCurtain County Sheriff’s Office declared on Facebook that the audio was illegally recorded and is "investigating" it as "criminal activity." The sheriff’s office claims the recording was altered. Not sure how it can be both fake and illegally obtained, but I'm not a racist cop.

Gov. Stitt, meanwhile, has asked the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to look into the case, and we can't imagine Clardy, Jennings, Manning, and Hendrix's careers will survive additional scrutiny.

[ NPR / Bulwark / Washington Post ]

  Follow Stephen Robinson on  Twitter if it still exists.  

Catch SER on his new podcast, The Play Typer Guy. 

Did you know SER has his own YouTube Channel? Well, now you do, so go subscribe right now!

Click the widget to keep your Wonkette ad-free and feisty.