Gaston, N.C. — A Gaston commissioner is under fire after a police officer accused him of calling several local people by a racial slur on multiple occasions.
Officer Evan Sokolove said Commissioner Tony Hux used the N-word when talking about Commissioner Deborah James, people living in Gaston’s public housing and Patricia Penn-Jacobs, a local resident who frequently attends town board meetings.
"It’s against what I stand for, it’s against what my family stands for, it’s against what this agency stands for, and it’s against what this community stands for," Sokolove, who has worked for the Gaston Police Department for more than a year, said Wednesday.
He reported the incidents to Police Chief Corey Dixon.
Hux declined to comment about the issue Wednesday.
"I was really hurt because Tony actually sits beside me. He sits beside me in the meetings," James said, adding that Hux never reached out to her directly to either deny the allegations or apologize.
"I just want Tony to realize that we’re not here to hurt him, but he has hurt this community," she said.
Tony Burnette, the president of Northampton County’s chapter of the NAACP, hand-delivered a letter to Gaston Mayor Alice Delbridge on Wednesday requesting a formal investigation of the allegations.
Delbridge told WRAL News that she couldn’t comment on personnel matters, but Town Attorney Geoffrey Davis responded to Burnette with his own letter.
"I am not aware of any legal authority that gives the Town the power to conduct the kind of inquiry you suggest," Davis said in the letter.
At a recent commissioners meeting, according to the Roanoke Rapids Daily Herald, Delbridge asked, "Have you ever heard Tony call a black person a n—? Any of you, white or black, have you ever heard him?"
The article also quoted her as saying, "Jesus said to forgive."
But some Gaston residents aren’t ready to do that until further action is taken.
"It's not something we need to just brush under the rug. I really think we need to address it," Dixon said.
"He hasn’t even reached out to me to say, ‘I’m sorry,’" Penn-Jacobs said. "He couldn’t even look me in my face when I asked him, ‘But you won’t say it to my face?’ And he never looked up at me, never said, ‘I didn’t say it.'"
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March 18, 2021 at 06:12AM
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NC town official accused of using racial slur against colleague, others - WRAL.com
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