August 31, 2020
Arkansas Sheriff Resigns After Audio Recording Reveals Him Using Racial Slur Nine Times
The tale of the tape has landed another law enforcement officer on the unemployment line. After a five minute recording was played on Facebook, an Arkansas sheriff was forced to resign his position after repeatedly using the “N-word” a reported nine times, according to USA Today.
Arkansas County Sheriff Todd Wright has resigned after he was heard on a recording using racial slurs against Black people. The since-deleted five-minute audio recording had been posted last week according to the Pine Bluff Commercial. Wright was chastising a woman he was with for communicating with a Black person in a grocery store.
In the recording, the woman, Desiree Middlebrooks, was called a “n**** lover” by Wright.
“I don’t understand why you’re so mad at me,” she says on the audio recording.
“Why you got to holler at f****** n****** when I’m around,” he responded.
“Todd you talk to people all the time,” the woman said.
Middlebrooks secretly recorded Wright as he expressed his anger and repeatedly used the racist slur against Black people.
A special Quorum Court meeting was held last Friday morning at the Arkansas County Courthouse to discuss Wright’s behavior and present a resolution requesting his resignation.
“After viewing and hearing the video I was terribly upset to know that we have someone out here that’s supposed to be taking care of us, protecting and serving to have that kind of opinion of me – I’m using me as a race because of my color,” said Justice of the Peace Inez McLemore.
“If the head is corrupt, the whole body is corrupt.”
“I’m a Christian man. I read my bible every day,” Wright said in response to the recording. “I am by no means a racist. That video does not show the true picture of me.”
“If it’s in your heart, in your mind and you say it, you mean it,” responded McLemore. “What you did on that video brought a world of separation.”
Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge tweeted the resignation of Wright was the right thing to do.
The resignation of the sheriff from Arkansas County is appropriate. There’s no excuse for bigotry & hatred. Such discrimination in no way reflects our values as Americans, Arkansans & law enforcement officers.
— Leslie Rutledge (@AGRutledge) August 28, 2020