Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt (R) has asked a group of politicians in McCurtain County to resign after a disturbing recording came from officials discussing plans to hire a hitman to kill and bury two newspaper reporters.
A recording of a March 6 county commissioners meeting also has one official lamenting that blacks can no longer be punished and making a barbecue joke about a woman who recently died in a fire, according to regional outlet Heartland Signal.
“I am shocked and displeased to hear the appalling comments made by officials in McCurtain County,” Stitt said in a statement. “There is no place for such hateful rhetoric in the state of Oklahoma, especially by those who represent our communities through their respective offices. I will not be idle when this happens.”
The harrowing conversation came to light after local reporter Bruce Willingham of the print-only McCurtain Gazette-News left a recording device at a commissioners’ meeting in an attempt to prove that officials held secret meetings.
Willingham was “completely shocked and horrified” by what he heard on the tape, he told KWTV News 9. On the tape, he heard the district. Commissioner Mark Jennings discussed how the group should handle the report from Willingham and his son, Chris Willingham.
According to transcripts and audio shared by the McCurtain Gazette-News, Jennings said on the recording that he was understand two big, “have dug” a hole “if you ever need someone,” And also said understand from “two or three hit people, they are very quiet men,” who promised to “Cut not rude.”
Jennings was also heard saying that he would run for sheriff if things were like “back in the day” when law enforcement officers could “take a bad black man and kick his ass and throw him in a cell.”
Alicia Manning, sherriff’s investigator for the county, said on the record that no one would care if the reporters were hurt.
“If a hair on his wife’s head, Chris Willingham’s head, or whoever’s behind him, if a hair on his head hits anybody, who’s going to be the bad guy?” he said.
Willingham told News 9 he turned the full audio over to the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office and the FBI, which have since opened an investigation.
He added that while some parts of the recording could be interpreted as joking comments, other parts could not, such as Manning’s whereabouts. began to talk about Willingham’s son-in-law and “began to worry who would be blamed.”
“I don’t see how you play as a joke,” he said.
HuffPost reached out to Jennings, who did not immediately respond.
On Monday, the McCurtain County Commission held an emergency meeting as protesters packed their offices, including Craig Young, the mayor of Idabel, the county’s largest city. Young requested the resignation of the official caught on tape, according to Tulsa Public Radio.