• Oklahoma county commissioner files handwritten resignation letter following racist remarks and threats against reporters
• Mark Jennings, during a previous meeting, said that he preferred a time when lynching was allowed
• The officials also involved allegedly talked about hiring hitmen to kill two journalists

County Commissioner Mark Jennings from Oklahoma files his handwritten resignation letter following calls for him to step down after he made racist remarks and threats toward reporters.

Jennings has been the county commissioner for the second district of McCurtain County since 2021, prior to his resignation. The letter was submitted to Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt's office and noted that the official was stepping down effective immediately.

Oklahoma Official Resigns Over Racist Remarks and Threats

The county commissioner's letter also stated that he plans to issue a statement "in the near future regarding the recent events in our county." The incident comes after a report that detailed a conversation between Jennings, Sheriff Kevin Clardy, investigator Alicia Manning, Commissioner Robert Beck, commissioner's secretary Heather Carter, and jail administrator Larry Hendrix.

The talks were held after a March 6 meeting of the county's board of commissioners and were where Jennings discussed his preference for returning to a time when the country allowed lynching to be done legally, as per The Hill.

He suggested taking them down to Mud Creek and hanging them up with a "damn rope." However, he said you were not allowed to do that anymore, arguing that they got more rights than they do. The county commissioner, alongside Clardy and Manning, also talked about the idea of potentially hiring killers to target two journalists.

Jennings said he knew of "two big deep holes" if anyone needed to use them for anything. Stitt was the one that called for the resignations of several officials, namely Jennings, Clardy, Manning, and Hendrix, following the release of recordings of their conversations.

The Oklahoma officials' remarks sparked immediate protest in Idabel, where Jennings is from, and outrage across the state and the country. On the other hand, the sheriff's office on Monday pushed back on the release of the recordings, saying that they were altered and illegal because no member of the conversations consented to the release of the recordings.

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Back to a Time of Lynching

Amid the release of the recording of the officials' conversations, they were already facing a lawsuit filed in federal court on the same day the recording was made. According to The Oklahoman, Chris Willingham, a reporter for McCurtain Gazette-News, brought the lawsuit on March 6.

He filed it against the McCurtain County Board of County Commissioners, the McCurtain County Sheriff's Office, Clardy, and Manning. Following the recordings being made public, the Oklahoma governor called for the officials to resign from their posts.

According to agency spokesman Gerald Davidson, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation is in charge of a probe that seeks to review the incident following Stitt's request. After the county commissioner's resignation, Oklahoma Sen. George Burns also urged Clardy and Jennings to resign immediately.

Burns argued that when the words of public officials in the country are so "vile" that they would hurt the people they serve, they should not be allowed to hold those positions any longer. The officials involved have not responded to requests for comment regarding the issue, said NBC News.

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