Less than a week after the entire police department in Kenly, N.C., announced their resignation, citing a “toxic” and “hostile” work environment, elected officials from the town of about 2,000 residents have gone silent on a plan for law enforcement moving forward. The July 20 mass resignation of the department’s police chief, four full-time officers and two town clerks, who are all white, came less than two months after the town hired a new town manager, who is Black, leaving many critics to question whether race was at the core of the department’s sudden collapse.
Justine Jones, who has worked for 16 years in local governments in Minnesota, Virginia, South Carolina and North Carolina, was selected to be town manager after a “nationwide search” of 30 candidates, according to a town press release. She began the job on June 2.
Kenly is 36% Black, 20% Hispanic and 36% non-Hispanic white.
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“I have put in my 2 weeks notice along with the whole police dept.,” Gibson wrote on Facebook last Wednesday. “The new manager has created an environment I do not feel we can perform our duties and services to the community.”
In the other resignation letters, obtained by WRAL, the two town clerks and other officers cited “toxic,” “hostile” and stressful work conditions.
None of the department employees expanded on the alleged working conditions.
R&I – FS
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