Last week, the entire police department in Kenly, North Carolina, resigned, citing a “hostile” work environment less than two months after Justine Jones, a Black woman, began her role as the town’s newly selected city manager.
Joy Wright, a local business owner, said the community is concerned about what the collective police retreat means for the future of the town. Wright also said she was mostly frustrated because the town hadn’t been keeping residents in the loop with any developments.
“It’s just weird, and for us to not have any information as to what to expect,” Wright said. “Are we going to have police? Are we going to have a town manager?”
Following an emergency, closed-door meeting last week, the Kenly town council released a statement this week saying, “The prudent course of action is to find out what happened and not make any rash decisions.”
Alan “Chip” Hewett, Kenly’s town attorney, told CNN that he will oversee an investigation conducted by an outside firm starting next week when all the resignations take effect. Technically, the police chief and officers are still on the job through the beginning of next week. The police chief’s resignation is effective Tuesday.
CNN obtained eight resignation letters in total, consisting of longtime police chief Josh Gibson, four full-time officers, one part-time officer and two town clerks. The letters are similar in language, with most referencing a stressful work environment, though they don’t provide any details about the allegedly “hostile” workplace, nor do they explicitly blame Jones.
However, Gibson has placed blame on Jones for the resignation — both in a Facebook post that has since been made private and in an exclusive interview with Fox News where he said Jones wrote him up multiple times and was targeting him.
“The new [town manager] has created an environment I do not feel we can perform our duties and services to the community,” Gibson said in his post on Facebook.
Jones started as Kenly’s town manager on June 2, according to an announcement from the town that notes she was unanimously approved by the council and touted her 16 years of experience working in “progressively responsible positions with local governments” in multiple states.
Residents split on whether it’s a ‘race issue’
Brittney Hinnant, a Kenly resident, said she feels like the situation is a “race issue” given that Jones is Black, while the entire Kenly Police Department is White. Hinnant also said she doesn’t think the police department supports Black people and she feels they often harass Black residents.
“I feel like they don’t want a Black woman over top of them, basically managing them or telling them what to do,” Hinnant said.
Jones told CNN that since this is a personnel matter, she can’t comment on the police resignations.
And other residents cautioned against jumping to conclusions, saying they’ve always had a good relationship with the police department.
Wright, who owns the Granny Barn, an embroidery and vinyl gift shop located two doors down from Town Hall, said she doesn’t think the situation was a “Black vs White thing.”
“I’ve never seen that being a problem,” she said when asked if she thought race played a role in the situation.
“I think there are too many jumping to conclusions, we really don’t know what is going on. I know I have never met this town manager, I have never had any problems with the police, so I really don’t know what dynamic could have led to these types of decisions,” Wright said.
Michelle Dawes, who’s from Kenly and used to work for the town, told CNN that she thought the situation was complicated. She said it’s possible that race and gender played a role in the resignations, but issues of accountability are really at the center of the situation.
“I have never had any personal problems with [Police Chief Josh] Gibson, but as a former employee of the town, I know how it works there,” said Dawes. “I immediately knew, this is someone new. She doesn’t know what, I call them, the ‘off the books rules’ are. Basically, when she came and got hired, she poked the bear by making him accountable.”
The Johnston County Sheriff’s Office, which already serves Kenly, will increase its presence in the town now that the police department will effectively disband.
Denise Bennett, a Kenly native, said the timing of everything makes her suspicious, adding that the situation seems to be more about power rather than resolving work-related issues. Bennett also said some residents have stated the resignations are not about racism, but she doesn’t think race-related issues can be completely thrown out as an explanation.
“When I realized the short amount of time that she had been on the job, and the drastic decision that was made, it just did not compute in my head,” Bennett said. “With the fact that there are so many things one can do if they think they have a nightmare supervisor, there’s so many things that can be done. But for an entire police staff to make the choice to quit when they have agreed to protect and serve, rather than to use all of the things in front of them to change the situation… it just didn’t make sense to me.”
CNN’s Wesley Bruer contributed to this report.
