Less than a week after the entire police department in Kenly, N.C., announced its 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.
