Oklahoma County Commissioner Resigns Over Leaked Racist And Threatening Remarks

Topline

A county commissioner in rural Oklahoma resigned Wednesday after he and other officials were accused of making threatening and racist remarks at a commissioners’ meeting last month, multiple news outlets reported, following uproar over a recording that allegedly caught county officials talking about lynching Black people and killing a local reporter.

People from Idabel, Okla., call for the resignation of several McCurtain County officials at a … [+] county commissioners meeting early Monday, April 17, 2023.

Christopher Bryan/Southwest Ledger via AP

Key Facts

McCurtain County Commissioner Mark Jennings submitted his resignation to Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.

Carly Atchison, Stitt’s spokesperson, told the AP the governor’s office received a handwritten resignation that promised a statement from Jennings “in the near future regarding the recent events in our county.”

As of Wednesday, the other three officials on the recording—Sheriff Kevin Clardy, an investigator for the sheriff’s office and a local jail administrator—have not resigned.

Key Background

Earlier this week, the McCurtain Gazette, a print-only local newspaper, released a set of recordings from a County Commissioners’ meeting on March 6. On the recording, which has not been independently verified by other news outlets, officials appear to complain that they’re no longer allowed to “hang” Black people and threaten to kill a reporter from the Gazette by hiring hit men. The recording’s release sparked outrage and calls for resignations from some locals in the rural southeastern Oklahoma county, which has a population of just over 30,000. On Sunday, Stitt called for the resignations of the officials. Phil Bacharach, a spokesperson for the Oklahoma Attorney General, told the AP the agency received the audio recording and is investigating the incident.

Contra

On Monday, the McCurtain County Sheriff’s Office claimed in a statement it had preliminary information suggesting the audio of the meeting was “altered.” The Sheriff’s Office also said there is an ongoing investigation into “multiple, significant violation[s]” of the Oklahoma Security of Communications Act, a regulation that says it’s illegal to secretly record a conversation without permission from at least one of the involved parties.

Surprising Fact

Bruce Willingham, the Gazette reporter who recorded the controversial remarks, told multiple news outlets he left his recording device in the commissioners’ meeting in an effort to prove officials were holding secret meetings. When he listened to the recording, he said he “was completely appalled and frightened, quite frankly,” especially because one of the reporters the county officials appeared to threaten to kill was Willingham’s son, Chris. Bruce Willingham told the AP he spoke with his attorneys twice to ensure he was not doing anything illegal by releasing the recording.

Tangent

Chris Willingham filed a lawsuit against Manning, the sheriff’s department and the Board of County Commissioners in federal court on the same day he recorded their remarks. The lawsuit alleges the officials defamed him and violated his civil rights, claiming Manning accused Willingham of committing sexual crimes against children and exchanging marijuana for pornographic videos of children. Chris Willingham claims he’s being retaliated against because of an eight-part investigation, published from November 2021 to April 2022, into misconduct at the McCurtain County Sheriff’s Office.

What To Watch For

Chris Willingham’s attorney told 2 News Oklahoma the full audio recording of the meeting, which is approximately three hours, will be released Thursday.