Sheriff Threatened to Fire All His Black Officers in Racist Tirade Caught on Tape
Just a few months after narrowly defeating the first Black sheriff in Columbus County, North Carolina, sheriff-elect Jody Greene went on a racist, paranoid tirade about his Black staff members in a phone call to the then-interim sheriff, calling them “bastards” and threatening to fire them all.
“Fuck them Black bastards,” Greene said during a phone call with then-interim chief Jason Soles back in February 2019. “They think I’m scared? They’re stupid. I don’t know what else to do with them, so it’s just time to clean them out.”
The audio, first obtained by NBC affiliate WECT, was captured by Soles, who told the outlet that he documented these calls because of the alarming language Greene had used. Only now, as Soles prepares to run against Greene for his seat, has the state Bureau of Investigation begun looking into the phone calls.
North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation’s public information director confirmed to VICE News Thursday that District Attorney Jon David requested that the agency investigate allegations of obstruction of justice concerning the Columbus County Sheriff’s Office this week.
During the calls, Greene expressed his suspicions that one of the department’s Black officers was leaking unspecified information about him to then-Sheriff Lewis Hatcher. At the time, Greene was still embroiled in the aftermath of the tight election, which he won by a margin of just 34 votes. As a winner was still being determined, Soles had been named interim sheriff.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/z34qwx/sheriff-threatened-to-fire-all-his-black-officers-in-racist-tirade-caught-on-tape
Lovely. Just lovely.
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