A county official in Oklahoma has resigned after he was caught on tape discussing hiring hit men to kill a reporter and lynching Black residents.
McCurtain County Commissioner Mark Jennings handed his handwritten resignation letter to Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) on Wednesday, days after local newspaper, the McCurtain Gazette-News, released the disturbing audio recording of a conversation that took place between county officials after a commissioners’ meeting last month.
“Effective immediately, I, Mark Jennings do hereby resign as McCurtain County District #2 commissioner,” Jennings wrote. “I will release a formal statement in the near future regarding the recent events in our county.”
During the conversation that included Sheriff Kevin Clardy, investigator Alicia Manning, Commissioner Robert Beck, commissioners’ secretary Heather Carter and jail administrator Larry Hendrix, Jennings complained to Clardy about no longer being able to hang Black people.
“If it was back in the day, when that Alan Marshton would take a damn black guy and whoop their ass and throw him in the cell? I’d run for fucking sheriff,” Jennings said.
“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,” he added.
Jennings later told Clardy and Manning that he knows “where two big deep holes are here if you ever need them,” while discussing Bruce Willingham, the publisher of Gazette-News. Clardy told them he has an excavator, to which Jennings replied the holes are “already dug.”
Jennings also said he knows “two or three hit men, they’re very quiet guys,” and “would cut no fucking mercy.”
Willingham told the Associated Press that the recording was made when he left a voice-activated recorder inside the room after the county commissioner’s meeting because he suspected the group was violating the state’s Open Meeting Act by continuing to conduct official county business after the meeting had ended.
The local sheriff’s office is arguing that the audio may have been altered and obtained illegally. Attorneys for the newspaper insisted that the recording was obtained legally and is not tampered with.
The Oklahoma Sheriffs’ Association voted unanimously on Tuesday to suspend Clardy, Manning and Hendrix.
