A Columbus County sheriff has been exposed for some crazy racist remarks he made about two Black former department members, according to NBC affiliate WCET. In the call recording, the sheriff accused the two of meddling with an election for his position as sheriff which… he ultimately ended up winning. He also threatened to fire them.
After the victory, Sheriff Jody Greene seemed to have more to say about it.
“I’m sick of it. I’m sick of these Black bastards,” said Greene said on the recording. “I’m going to clean house and be done with it. And we’ll start from there.”
Greene beat former sheriff Lewis Hatcher in a 2018 election for the position. According to WCET’s report, the results were protested around rural North Carolina as people were concerned about Greene not being a county resident (a state law requirement) and his swearing in before the state certified the votes. As the court decided who was the real winner, then-Captain Jason Soles was the interim sheriff.
Soles told WCET following his appointment is when he began receiving phone calls from a disgruntled Greene trying to track down whether Lewis and former Sgt. Melvin Campbell had been scheming with each other. Soles recorded part of one call.
More from the phone calls from WCET:
“This one particular phone call that [I] received, he made the comment that he hated Democrats. And then he said, ‘I take that back. I hate a Black f***ing Democrat.’ And, and I knew right then, I was like, ‘Wow, this is coming from the sheriff.’ And, I had to start recording those conversations,” Soles said of the moments before he hit record on the phone call.
“Tomorrow’s gonna be a new f**king day. I’m still the motherf**king sheriff, and I’ll go up and fire every godd**n [inaudible]. F**k them black bastards. They think I’m scared? They’re stupid,” Greene said. “I don’t know what else to do it. So it’s just time to clean them out. There’s a snitch in there somewhere tellin’ what we are doing. And I’m not gonna have it. I’m not going to have it.”
In the recording, Greene can be heard saying he’s going to start firing people who are “guilty by f**king association” with Campbell and Hatcher.
“We’ll cut the snake’s head f**king off. Period. And Melvin Campbell is as big a snake as Lewis Hatcher ever dared to be. Every black that I know, you need to fire him to start with, he’s a snake,” Greene says before ending the phone call.
Honestly, the only thing missing from these transcripts is the n-word. Soles told WCET he was disappointed that the sheriff-to-be was spouting racist comments like that and received no support after bringing it to the attention of the County Commissioners.
Greene basically threatened to jeopardize the diversity of the department and create an atmosphere where these biases can grow beyond what they are now. When WCET asked Greene about the call, he responded with pure confusion. “Absolutely not, I do not recall that. And it says what? Is it me? What does it say I said?” Greene said. It looks like he has to check is own phone records now.
So far, Greene demoted two Black staff members who were on command when Sheriff Hatcher was in charge, the report says. As of now, his command staff has no people of color. Something tells me he’s not stopping there.