Re: McCurtain Gazette-News releases entire audio of county leaders talking about killing reporters, lynching Black residents

[Kavon]

Bob Duncan <bob7d...@gmail.com> wrote in
news:sss72q$mnqj$4...@news.freedyn.de:

> davej wrote
>
>>
>> Dumb shit. You never expose yourself like that.

The Oklahoma sheriff who was secretly recorded reportedly talking about
killing reporters and lynching Black people also boasted about physically
confronting the local district attorney and threatening to “whoop his
ass,” newly released audio revealed.

McCurtain County Sheriff Kevin Clardy said he went to District Attorney
Mark Matloff‘s office and told him “I ain’t no f-----g liar,” according to
the McCurtain Gazette-News, which released the full 3-hour, 37-minute
audio late Wednesday. NBC News has listened to the recording in full but
has not independently verified its authenticity.

“I shouldn’t have said what I did,” Clardy could be heard saying. “He was
looking for a place to get out of his damn door.”

But Clardy said he was “pissed.”

“He said you have a seat I said I think I’ll stand,” Clardy said on the
recording. “I was standing right in the middle of his door. I went over
there to whoop his ass. I got pissed off, I got pissed off.”

The sheriff can also be heard repeatedly making comments about newspaper
reporter Christopher Lee Willingham, saying he was “gonna bounce his ass.”

Neither Clardy nor Matloff have responded to requests for comment about
their alleged confrontation — or about the recording that Willingham’s
father and fellow reporter, Bruce Willingham, said they secretly made on
March 6 to gather evidence that the McCurtain County commissioners were
illegally engaging in county business after the public meetings were over.

The first excerpts, which the McCurtain Gazette-News published over the
weekend, sparked outrage in the town of Idabel and brought unwanted
national attention to a county that is home to a little over 20,000 people
and located in the southeastern corner of Oklahoma, an area known as
“Little Dixie.”

The report in the print-only McCurtain Gazette-News also prompted Oklahoma
Gov. Kevin Stitt to call for the resignations of Clardy; Alicia Manning
and Larry Hendrix, who are two other sheriff’s department workers; as well
as county Commissioner Mark Jennings.

Jennings resigned on Wednesday. It was Jennings who was heard talking with
Clardy and the others on the recording about lynching Black people.

In the full recording that was released on Thursday, Jennings can be heard
talking about punishing the McCurtain Gazette-News for its reporting on
the county by buying an old military tank to drive into the newspaper
building.

In the recording he’s asked how he’d explain what happened, Jenning
replied, “Sorry, I couldn’t stop this motherf-----.”

Jennings, in his handwritten resignation letter, said he would “release a
formal statement in the near future regarding the recent events in our
county.” So far he hasn’t.

<https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mccurtain-gazette-news-releases-
entire-audio-county-leaders-talking-ki-rcna80648>