photo courtesy of Columbus County Sheriff's Office
On September 28, a shocking audio recording was publicized, exposing Columbus County Sheriff Jody Greene for spewing vicious racist rhetoric.
While under investigation to judge his ability to effectively serve as a sheriff, Greene was caught talking to Captain Jason Soles who had agreed to be wiretapped to record his conversations with the sheriff. The recording relayed him referring to Black folks as “Black bastards” and calling them “stupid” and took place only two months into Greene’s stint in his position.
The audio conversation began with Greene mentioning that they had a “snitch” in the police department office, according to WECT 6. He brought up concerns that someone had given damning information to one of his primary political opponents in the North Carolina county.
“I’m going to clean house and be done with it. And we’ll start from there,” the bigoted sheriff said, referencing that since he’d been put into his position, he’d significantly cut down on Black people on his staff. He’d demoted Black Captain Clementine Thompson before firing her and then demoted one of his Black lieutenants into a lesser-paying civil division. It was reported that Greene’s command staff had no minority staff.
“They’re gone. This is as fair as I’m going to be. Just giving you a heads up, that’s coming[…]the first numbers we see, they’re gone. They ain’t going to make it, brother. I’m telling you, they might as well find somewhere else to go. Because if you ain’t with me – I ain’t referring to you – but if they’re not with me, they’re against me. And they’re gone. And that’s just how it’s going to be. Clarity – whatever her name is, I don’t trust her. Dawn says she’s racist… If I have to fire every mother f***er out there, guess what? I’m tired of them f***ing with me. It ain’t happening no more. No godd**n more. So you let them know, if I find their numbers in the next day or two, they ain’t going to like it. They damn sure ain’t going to like it. And that’s got to be somebody in the command staff. Clarity. I don’t trust her. She’s just sitting there staring at me the other day, the whole time. Staring at me the whole f**ing time.”
Augustine Clarida is a Black detention officer.
Greene continued, “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. 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. We’ll cut the snake’s head f**king off. Period. Every Black that I know, you need to fire him to start with; he’s a snake.”
Greene is being investigated after the surfacing of the audio retrieved by Jason Soles– who turned out to be the aforementioned “snitch” that the Sheriff was looking for. Soles said he knew he needed to look deeper into Greene after a phone call that pushed his racist rhetoric to the forefront.
“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 is currently running against the current Sheriff for his position after being further propelled by concerns that Greene may have one his first election through voter fraud and that he may not be a resident in Columbus County. Also, he may not have even been properly sworn in.