WATCH: Council Member Edmund Ford Sr. Insults Martavious Jones, Gets Mic Cut Off
Tuesday’s Memphis City Council meeting ended in a vulgar display of anger as one council member called another nasty names, his words are now part of an official city ethics probe.
Council member Edmund Ford Sr. said council member Martavius Jones had “butthole problems” and was a “short-ass man” in a tirade that ended only when council chairwoman Patrice Robinson muted the mics of nearly all council members.
The insults came directly after the election of Frank Colvett Jr. as new council chairman, whom Ford had nominated. Jones was nominated, too. During remarks before the vote, Jones referenced a similar situation on a previous council election that involved Edmund Ford Jr., the son of Edmund Ford Sr.
After a brief speech from Colvett, Ford requested permission to speak from Robinson. She granted it and Ford laid into Jones.
“Councilman Jones, you shouldn’t have went there,” he began. “Don’t ever go there again with me and my family, my son, or anybody else. You did it once. You did it once before. Do not go there anymore. You keep your comments to yourself. Because you don’t want me to come out there and talk about …”
[pullquote-1-center] The rest of the words become indecipherable as Jones began to retort and the audio becomes garbled. To be heard over the noise, Ford leaned directly into his computer’s camera and yelled, “because you got butthole problems, don’t you?” Ford’s mic is muted. Though, he can be seen mouthing angrily on camera.
Many other council members were clearly uncomfortable at the words. Sign language interpreter Brenda Cash’s (bottom row in between Ford and J Ford Canale) expression was one of disbelief.
Robinson then asked staff members to mute all mics except for those acknowledged by her. Ford continued to mouth angrily and somehow manages to un-mute his mic.
[pullquote-2-center] “My mic is off but he’s a little short-ass man,” Ford said, before being muted for the last time.
The exchange was less than a minute long, but it drew a formal ethics probe from council member J.B. Smiley, who has also requested a rule change to not allow council members to insult one another.
