An Oklahoma county commissioner has resigned after he was apparently caught on tape making racist remarks and referencing “hanging,” the governor’s office confirmed Wednesday.
Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) said Sunday he was seeking the resignations of four county officials after a local newspaper reporter revealed the recording.
The governor’s office said McCurtain County Commissioner Mark Jennings had submitted a handwritten resignation letter.
Along with his immediate resignation, Jennings says he plans to release a formal statement “in the near future regarding the recent events in our county.”
The recording, a portion of which was released by The McCurtain Gazette-News, appears to record Jennings along with McCurtain County Sheriff Kevin Clardy, sheriff’s investigator Alicia Manning and jail administrator Larry Hendrix.
The recording appears to capture Jennings complaining about two of the paper’s journalists—father and son Bruce and Chris Willingham—while referencing “hit men” and the location of two already-dug holes in the ground.
In the recording, Jennings tells Clardy and Manning, “I know where two deep holes are dug if you ever need them,” to which the sheriff responds, “I’ve got an excavator.”
Jennings also said he’s known “two or three hit men” in Louisiana.
Jennings further appears to complain about no longer being able to hang Black people. “They got more rights than we got,” he says.
A statement Monday by the McCurtain County Sheriff’s Office said there was an “ongoing investigation into multiple significant violations” of the Oklahoma Security of Communications Act, which makes it “illegal to secretly record a conversation in which you are not involved and do not have the consent of at least one of the involved parties.”
“I talked on two different occasions to our attorneys to make sure I wasn’t doing anything illegal,” Bruce Willingham has stated.
He said he left a voice-activated recorder inside the room after a county commissioner’s meeting on March 6 because he suspected the group was continuing to conduct county business after the meeting had ended, in violation of the state’s Open Meeting Act.
On Tuesday, the Oklahoma Sheriff’s Association—a voluntary membership association and not a regulatory agency—held an emergency meeting, during which its board voted unanimously to suspend Clardy, Manning and Hendrix.
