Oklahoma Sherriff Okay with Killing Reporters and Lynching Black Men
A recording device left in the office of the McCurtain County Sheriff speaks volumes
On March 6, when the McCurtain County commissioner's meeting ended, a handful of Sheriff Kevin Clardy's associates stayed behind. The stragglers included District 2 Commissioner Mark Jennings, Capt. Alicia Manning, Jail Administrator Larry Hendrix, and two others identified in the published portion of the transcript as "Heather" and "Beck."
But none were aware of another holdover from the meeting — a voice-activated recorder.
The recorder was left by Bruce Willingham, publisher of the McCurtain Gazette-News. He told reporters he left the recording after becoming concerned that lawmakers were in the habit of continuing county business after meetings had officially ended. A claim that, if true, would violate the state's Open Meeting Act.
Before leaving the device, Willingham said that he consulted with attorneys to ensure his actions were not illegal.
When Willingham retrieved the recorder, he heard a disturbing conversation. The full transcript has yet to be published, but snippets have been shared with various reporters, and all of it has been given to the Oklahoma Attorney General and the FBI.
In one portion of the tape, Sheriff Cardy compared the body of a woman who died in a fire to what happens when meat is cooked, after which they laughed and said he was hungry and wanted to eat bbq.
Then Commissioner Jennings steered the conversation toward people who might want to run for sheriff to replace Sheriff Clardy. Here is how that conversation unfolded:
Jennings: “. . . 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 Marshton would take a damn black guy and whoop their ass and throw him in the cell? I’d run for fucking sheriff.”
Sheriff: 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.
And it didn't get better after that. Jennings continued by saying he knew where a couple of holes were "pre-dug," implying that he had a place to stash a couple of bodies if needed. He also let them know that he'd known a few hitmen, ". . . they're very quiet guys. . . and would cut no fucking mercy."
The Oklahoman published another part of the conversation in which Manning talked about doing away with the reporters (presumably in reference to Bruce Willingham and his son, who is also a reporter and had filed a defamation lawsuit against the sheriff's office), and Manning and the Board of County Commissioners.
Manning mentioned needing to go to a post office near the newspaper where Willingham worked. She said she was concerned about what would happen if she ran into Willingham.
“Yeah, I ain’t worried about what he’s gonna do to me. I’m worried about what I might do to him. My papaw would have whipped his ass, would have wiped him and used him for toilet paper … if my daddy hadn’t been run over by a vehicle, he would have been down there.”
And so it goes.
Oklahoma's dark history of murder and racism
In the early 1900s, countless Osage Indians were murdered for the "headrights" to land the government accidentally gave them — I say accidentally because they would never have been given the land if the government had known it was rich with oil — "black gold," as they called it.
Once the Osage became rich and started living like white people with fancy cars and stately mansions, white folks started killing them — systematically, in a conspiracy that covered several decades and involved the murder of hundreds of Osage and anyone who tried to investigate or stop them.
David Grann tells the full story of this tragic era in American history in the book Killers of the Flower Moon.
Today, the conversation caught on tape after the McCurtain County commissioners meeting sounds like something out of 1920s Oklahoma. The only difference is, now that the Osage are no longer a threat to them, they want to lynch Black people and kill reporters who get in their way.
Protestors respond to the racist, murderous talk of County officials.
Yesterday (4/17/23), the day after the partial transcript was released, over 100 people showed up outside the sheriff's office to protest and call for the resignation of the sheriff and the others who participated. I don't know how many people live in McCurtain County, Oklahoma, but 100 seems like a meager number, considering the audio content released to the public.
Fortunately, the governor of Oklahoma is also asking Sheriff Clardy, Capt. Alicia Manning, District 2 Commissioner Mark Jennings, and Jail Administrator Larry Hendrix to resign. It will also be interesting to see what the FBI does with this case.
So far, the only national coverage I’ve seen of this has been on MSNBC, in a short piece at the start of the Rachel Maddow show. Maybe that’s because we have the shooting of another innocent Black man (a teen) to focus on.
*UPDATE: 4/18/23 - CNN is now covering this in detail and has confirmed that the full recording has been given to the FBI.
Missouri man shoots Black teenager for ringing his doorbell
Ralph Yarl, a 16-year-old Black teen, was shot twice after he accidentally showed up on the porch of an old white man in a Kansas City, Missouri suburb while attempting to retrieve his younger brothers from a friend's house.
His punishment for ringing the doorbell of the wrong house was to get shot twice as soon as the homeowner opened his door.
The shooter, an 85-year-old white man, said he'd just laid down to go to sleep when the doorbell rang. He said he thought the Black man was breaking into his house and was afraid because he was too old and frail to defend himself. Yet he opened the door. He voluntarily opened the door to this young Black man who he thought was trying to break in.
Why didn't he call the police? Or better yet, ignore the doorbell. Why was his first instinct to open the door and shoot?
Racism is a pathology we must eradicate
When a person is so entrenched in their beliefs that it prevents them from thinking — when a man who so fears the "other" can't even open a door without shooting a child because that child is tall and dark, there is a pathology at work.
In struggling to understand where this comes from, I have concluded that some white people are incapable of seeing POC as human because their identities require them to maintain the belief that white people are superior and everyone else is inferior. Therefore, in their twisted minds, all white people are safe, and all Black people are dangerous.
The projection of their negative and hateful attitudes onto others allows them to absolve themselves of their own deficiencies. The idea that POC are only different from white people in the color of their skin and in every other way they are the same cannot be tolerated by them. Their very identity requires that they believe in their own "natural" superiority.
How else can they justify slavery? It cannot be that white people tortured and abused human beings just like themselves. No, that would tear at the heartstrings of any rational person. But if they can dehumanize others, then any treatment of them can be justified, whether it is rape, murder, or torture.
Donald Trump called DA Bragg an "animal." He is just like the white man who shot Ralph Yarl. They are made of the same cloth. This may have happened in Missouri, but the heart of the matter we must all grapple with is everywhere in this country.
The Oklahoma County officials who chatted casually about lynching Black men are the prelude to what happened to Ralph Yarl. When will we start dealing with the issues that create this pathology instead of waiting for another Black person to get killed and then rushing to offer thoughts and prayers?
Racism doesn't begin with the gunshot; it begins with an idea. That's what we must address.