{"id":14878,"date":"2023-07-01T03:55:29","date_gmt":"2023-07-01T08:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=14878"},"modified":"2023-07-01T03:55:33","modified_gmt":"2023-07-01T08:55:33","slug":"oklahoma-sheriff-connected-to-audio-with-racist-comments-cant-be-removed-from-office-ag-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=14878","title":{"rendered":"Oklahoma sheriff connected to audio with racist comments can\u2019t be removed from office, AG says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An Oklahoma sheriff who allegedly participated in a secretly recorded conversation that included racist remarks about lynching Black people and comments about killing journalists will not face criminal charges and cannot be removed from office, the state\u2019s attorney general announced Friday.
In a letter to Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Friday, the state\u2019s Attorney General Gentner Drummond said his office completed an investigation and found \u201cno evidence\u201d that\u00a0McCurtain County Sheriff Kevin Clardy committed any criminal act\u00a0in the audio, which caused nationwide outrage. Drummond, a Republican, said state law doesn\u2019t allow elected officials to be ousted \u201cmerely for saying something offensive.\u201d
McCurtain County is in southeastern Oklahoma, about 200 miles from Oklahoma City.
In April, Stitt, who is also Republican, asked Gentner to conduct an investigation after the\u00a0McCurtain Gazette-News newspaper published audio\u00a0it said was recorded following a Board of Commissioners meeting on March 6.
The paper said the audio of the meeting was legally obtained, but the McCurtain County Sheriff\u2019s Office said in a statement that it was illegally recorded and was investigating. The sheriff\u2019s office also said it believed the recording had been altered.
\u201cI am both appalled and disheartened to hear of the horrid comments made by officials in McCurtain County,\u201d Stitt said in a statement in April. \u201cThere is simply no place for such hateful rhetoric in the state of Oklahoma, especially by those that serve to represent the community through their respective office. I will not stand idly by while this takes place,\u201d the statement said.
Stitt swiftly called on the four county officials allegedly heard speaking in the audio recording to resign, including Clardy, District 2 Commissioner Mark Jennings, sheriff\u2019s investigator Alicia Manning and jail administrator Larry Hendrix.
Jennings announced in\u00a0a handwritten letter\u00a0in April that he was resigning \u201ceffective immediately\u201d after the recording was published, CNN previously reported.
Audio came after local journalist filed lawsuit
The recording was made hours after Gazette-News reporter Chris Willingham filed a lawsuit against the sheriff\u2019s office, Manning and the Board of County Commissioners, alleging they had defamed him and violated his civil rights, the newspaper reported.
According to\u00a0a report by The Oklahoman on the audio, Jennings said, \u201cOh, you\u2019re talking about you can\u2019t control yourself?\u201d and Manning replied: \u201cYeah, I ain\u2019t worried about what he\u2019s gonna do to me. I\u2019m worried about what I might do to him. My papaw would have whipped his a**, would have wiped him and used him for toilet paper \u2026 if my daddy hadn\u2019t been run over by a vehicle, he would have been down there.\u201d
Jennings replied that his father was once upset by something the newspaper published and \u201cstarted to go down there and just kill him,\u201d according to the\u00a0Gazette-News.
\u201cI know where two big, deep holes are here if you ever need them,\u201d Jennings allegedly said, according to a federal lawsuit filed by the reporter. Clardy allegedly responded by saying he had the equipment.
\u201cI\u2019ve got an excavator,\u201d Clardy is accused of saying during the discussion. \u201cWell, these are already pre-dug,\u201d Jennings allegedly said.
Enter your email to sign up for CNN’s “Meanwhile in China” Newsletter.
\u201cI know where two big, deep holes are here if you ever need them,\u201d Jennings allegedly said, according to a federal lawsuit filed by the reporter. Clardy allegedly responded by saying he had the equipment.
\u201cI\u2019ve got an excavator,\u201d Clardy is accused of saying during the discussion. \u201cWell, these are already pre-dug,\u201d Jennings allegedly said.
Enter your email to sign up for CNN’s “Meanwhile in China” Newsletter.
What\u2019s happening in China and what does it mean for the rest of the world?
Sign Me U
CNN<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Oklahoma sheriff who allegedly participated in a secretly recorded conversation that included racist remarks about lynching Black people and comments about killing journalists will not face criminal charges and cannot be removed from office, the state\u2019s attorney general announced Friday.In a letter to Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Friday, the state\u2019s Attorney General Gentner […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":14879,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9376,9377,1458,5394],"class_list":["post-14878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-illegal-recording","tag-mccurtin-county-sheriff","tag-oklahoma","tag-racist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14880,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14878\/revisions\/14880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}