What happens behind closed doors when officials are meeting unlawfully has long been a concern of this newspaper, particularly because of how rare it is for those officials to face serious consequences for breaking the law. In Oklahoma, a journalist got lots more than he bargained for after deliberately leaving behind a recorder in a public meeting to verify that officials weren’t following the state’s open-meetings law. The more-than three-hour recording included talk of lynching Blacks and discussion of ways to contact hit men to kill and bury the journalist.
The journalist is Bruce Wallingham, publisher and editor of the Gazette-News in McCurtain County, Oklahoma. He was covering an open meeting of several county officials but, because of past experience with officials apparently continuing to meet after their public session had adjourned, Wallingham decided to leave his recorder running just to verify. He says he checked with a lawyer to ensure it was legal. When he checked the recording afterward, that’s when he heard the shocking back-and-forth among them.
Bizarrely, the officials aren’t disputing their racist remarks and discussion of killing Wallingham and his son. Rather, they’re upset at being recorded without their consent.
Across the country, people in official capacities have felt emboldened in recent years to say abhorrent things without fear of political repercussions, primarily because Republican commentators and leaders all the way up to former President Donald Trump have made it acceptable, even laudable, to do so. The more they talk this way, the more others feel free do it, which could explain why racially motivated mass shootings, anti-Semitic attacks and other acts of outrage are on the rise.
In the Oklahoma case, McCurtain County Commissioner Mark Jennings was in a public meeting with the county sheriff and two other senior law enforcers. State open meetings law forbids closed-door discussions outside of an official meeting unless the topic is covered under executive-session rules that closely resemble those in Missouri.
The law doesn’t list discussion of lynching Blacks or the killing and disposal of journalists as legal topics to justify executive sessions.
In the recording, Jennings says: “I know where two deep holes are dug if you ever need them,” in reference to Wallingham and his son, reporter Chris Wallingham. The sheriff chimes in about securing an excavator for burial. Jennings says he knows of “two or three hit men” in Louisiana. They also lament not being able to lynch Black people anymore, with Jennings complaining, “They got more rights than we got.”
Jennings has resigned. The sheriff’s office, however, posted on Facebook that the recording constitutes “criminal activity” because it was made without the participants’ consent. “Multiple agencies are assisting in this ongoing investigation,” the office said, hinting that Wallingham could face felony charges — for exposing the planning of his own murder and the racist views of the officials holding an unlawful meeting.
Only in America.
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch
