Here are my thoughts.
The sheriff and other men were clearly joking. That isn’t cause to pressure them to resign. Aka lose your job, livelihood, and ability to feed your family.
These are rural Okie good ole boys.
It was shady for the journalist to secretly record them.
Given the fact we don’t know these men’s personal histories or characters, you have to give them the benefit of the doubt they weren’t being literal. They were almost certainly blowing off steam the way you’d expect some small town Okie men to do.
That said, the comments in question were bigoted, in the traditional sense of the word. They should be reprimanded and counseled.
Yet there is truth to what they said. There are low life journalists whose methods of journalism cry out to God for His vengeance. And today with PC woke culture, the police have to treat minorities with extra care or else they might get wrongly accused of racial harassment. That was the message I got from their crudely made comments.
What was unfortunately said and recorded by those men is an embarrassment to Oklahoma. But so is the journalist recording it and leaking it to the whole country, an obviously intended private venting session, even if it shouldn’t have occurred in that public setting after the official public meeting ended.