MCBEE, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) -- The bright blue light of a cellphone display bounced off former McBee Police Officer Jerriell Wright's face as he scrolled through months of text messages between him and McBee Mayor Glen Odom. I looked over his shoulder as he scrolled through the texts, which were too many to count, as Jerriell remembered individual traffic stops and cases he worked when a text jogged his memory. The text thread started more than a year ago. Former McBee Police Officer Jerriell Wright prepares to resign during this interview with Queen City News on Jan. 29, 2025. Wright was shot at 62 times after a man armed with a high-powered rifle tried to kill him when Wright stopped him for speeding in McBee, S.C. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr) The messages contained the unfiltered communications between a mayor and the town's top ticket-producing police officer, Jerriell Wright. The messages showed near-daily check-ins, with the mayor asking for on-shift updates of traffic ticket totals and fine amounts while Wright policed the one-square-mile town that lies directly in the path from Charlotte to Myrtle Beach. OFFICER DOWN: McBee cop who survived 62 shots fired at him says town threw him out ‘like garbage’ The messages also showed what Wright considered evidence to support his belief that he was forced into a ticket quota system on day one in McBee, just hours after he graduated from the S.C. Criminal Justice Academy on Jan. 19, 2024. “Ten a day is what they wanted. Ten tickets per day. They tell me you can sit at this corner and write a few, you can go to this corner and write a few. He said you can go at each end of McBee and write a few, and you can get ten a day, that's what we want,” Jerriell Wright told me. “And what would that ten cover?” I asked. "My job, I guess," Wright responded. Jerriell Wright provided this screenshot of an August 26 and 27, 2024, text exchange between himself and McBee Mayor Glenn Odom. Wright believes this text is evidence showing the mayor implemented a ticket quota system on the McBee Police Department in 2024. (Source: Jerriell Wright) Wright said the mayor gave him the order of a minimum of 10 tickets per day. "They" in his quote above was in reference to former McBee Police Chief Mike Irvin, who was in the meeting that day with Wright and Odom. I asked Irvin about this meeting and if that directive was ever given to Wright, but Irvin never responded to my messages. Chesterfield County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Mike Irvin was "reassigned" after a drug agent under his supervision told the sheriff's office that Irvin had him get a search warrant based on a controlled drug purchase that never really happened. Irvin was the McBee, S.C. police chief until June 2024 when he left to rejoin the sheriff's office as the head of the sheriff's drug unit. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr) Irvin is currently under a South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) criminal investigation over allegations he falsified a drug search warrant, and Irvin has not responded to any of my messages since we launched our 'Unwarranted' investigation into that search warrant last summer. ‘UNWARRANTED’: State investigating allegations top drug cop in Chesterfield County lied to get search warrant Chief Irvin left McBee last year and went to work for Sheriff Cambo Streater to lead the Chesterfield County Sheriff's Office's narcotics unit. The SLED investigation is still pending, according to SLED's public relations office. Wright and I met in secret back on Dec. 19. He was still employed by McBee PD, but wasn't yet medically cleared for duty after a gunman fired 62 shots at him during a traffic stop on Sept. 19, 2024. The rookie officer was hit four times: once in the forearm, twice under the left arm, and a bullet grazed the back of his skull. UNREAL DEAL: Vote that caught McBee mayor, councilman in ethics charge may be invalid Wright said the gunman, Alston Modlin, 27, jumped out of his Toyota truck before Wright could get his patrol car in park and immediately started firing a high-powered rifle into the driver's side of his patrol car's windshield. These photographs show the damage that the 62 shots fired at McBee Police Officer Jerriell Wright did to the McBee PD cruiser. The car had less than 500 miles on it when Wright crammed himself down inside the floorboard and used his bulletproof vest to shield his skull from the shots on Sept. 19, 2024. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr) From what Wright learned of the shooting from his department, Modlin emptied two AK-47 rifle clips as he circled the car, firing into the black tinted windows where the officer should have been. Modlin then pulled a smaller caliber handgun and emptied it into Wright's driver's side window. Wright crawled into the floorboard of his Dodge Charger patrol car after the first few shots and pulled his bulletproof vest over his head, and rode out the storm of lead he believed Modlin intended to kill him with. UNREAL DEAL: State ethics investigators looking into SC mayor’s first vote on first day in office “It was the most sickening feeling in the world to lie there and expect to die. I didn't know when it was going to happen, but I just knew then and there, 43 years old and I’ve lived my life and it’s time to go," Wright said in an interview in January. ‘Was a joke.’ SC reporter arrested after taping sign to front of town hall The interviews and house visits I had with Wright were mostly done at night and in different cars to hide our contacts. Wright was still living in the mayor's rental home, which sits a block away from McBee's town hall. Wright feared he'd be fired, lose his insurance, and be evicted if the town knew he was talking to me. McBee Mayor Glenn Odom denied former McBee Police Officer Jerriell Wright's allegations that Odom ordered a minimum of 10 tickets per day when the town hired Wright. Odom admitted he did have a conversation with Wright about 10 tickets per day, but, "It’s just a general statement that, you know, get out there and work or whatever, but most of these officers are writing more than ten a day," Odom told QCN Chief Investigative Reporter Jody Barr during a March 4, 2025, interview. (WJZY Photo/Jody Barr) In the past couple of years, McBee's government and policing practices were subjects of Queen City News investigations. Wright told me he was very familiar with me and the work we've done investigating McBee, long before we met on Dec. 19. SC mayor, councilman hit with ethics charges in ‘Unreal Deal’ city water investigation During that secret first meeting between me and Jerriell, I stopped him as he scrolled through those texts. I pulled my cellphone out and pulled up my own string of texts with Mayor Glenn Odom. I opened Odom's contact and pulled up his phone number. I asked Jerriell to do the same. I read Odom's number to Jerriell and asked him to read the number he had for Odom on his own phone. Once I was able to confirm we were working off the same phone number, our meeting continued as Wright started screenshotting multiple texts and sent them to me. Over the next four months, I unpacked what Wright believed was evidence to support his allegation that thousands of drivers were victims of a ticket quota system in McBee, S.C. That night, I began the tedious work of building timelines and tracing patterns that began to unfold a story of the McBee mayor and his influence over the McBee Police Department. Our 'Officer Down' investigative series continues tonight at 10 on Queen City News. ...read more read less