Category: Public Safety
New Alabama Law Aims to Improve Police Interactions With People With Disabilities
Some advocates said the law’s requirement of an hour-long training on working with people with “invisible” disabilities and sensory needs is a good start. Read more.
When Alabama Police Kill, Surviving Family Can Fight Years to See Body Cam Footage. There’s No Guarantee They Will
It was early morning on July 8, 2018, when Joseph Pettaway’s family was told by a neighbor that he had been badly injured by a police dog overnight and taken to the hospital.
He’d been rehabbing a home a block away from where he lived with his mother. His sister, Nancy, set off to see what had happened at the blighted house on the outskirts of Montgomery.
She came upon a grisly scene. Blood was pooled on the pavement, and police officers were hosing it down. The front door was open, and Nancy Pettaway peeked at the hallway inside. “I seen blood, like they had dragged him,” she said. “One of the police told me to get back, and I said I ain’t going nowhere, cause that’s my brother, that’s my brother’s blood, and you gotta tell me what’s going on.”
But the Montgomery police refused to give her any information and later that day confirmed to the news media only that a suspected burglar had died on the scene.
The police who were there when Pettaway was killed wore body cameras that recorded what happened, but Montgomery’s department repeatedly refused to show the footage to the Pettaways, saying the video was “confidential,” and under Alabama law, the family had no right to access the video.
It’s a recurring theme in Alabama, which is among the most restrictive states for disclosing body cam footage when police kill. Read more.
Birmingham Nears Year’s End With Mixed Crime Numbers
The city of Birmingham released its most recent crime stats Friday, showing that, while nonviolent crimes such as burglary, auto theft and theft numbers have increased this year, violent crimes still are down somewhat. Read more.
Deputy Sheriff Charged in On-Duty Shooting
Birmingham Sets Up New Police Advisory Committee
Birmingham Randall Woodfin on Tuesday announced the formation of a Public Safety Advisory Committee to conduct an assessment of police operations, review community complaints, bring transparency to police operations and hold the police department accountable for its actions.
The first meeting of the committee will be Thursday on the second floor of City Hall and is open to the public.
The committee formation comes after the city in 2021 formed a Civilian Review Board, but it never got to the point of publicly dealing with community complaints. Read more.
Birmingham will fund a ‘violence intervention’ program. Can it get to the heart of the problem?
Michelle Farley remembers Rico. He was a member of the Youth Action Committee at One Roof, the Birmingham homelessness services organization where Farley serves as executive director.
In 2019, Rico was shot, according to Farley, and remained hospitalized for weeks. He was then released, she said, “with no more resources for conflict resolution or violence prevention than when he entered.”
Just a few weeks later, Rico was shot for a second time. He didn’t make it.
On Tuesday, the Birmingham City Council approved a pilot program to provide services to those impacted by gun violence in the Magic City. Read more.
‘This just can’t go on’: Birmingham City Councilors Somber a Day After Firefighter’s Death
As Birmingham’s city councilors met Tuesday, the mood was somber.
Just a day earlier, Jordan Melton, a Birmingham firefighter, had died as a result of injuries he suffered when he and his colleague, Jamal Jones, were shot inside Station 9 on July 12.
As council members gathered in Boutwell Auditorium for their regularly scheduled meeting, a shirt was draped in solidarity across the tables at the front of the room. It was a show of solidarity: “Birmingham Fire & Rescue,” it said across its front.
“On behalf of Mayor Woodfin, I want to express that our hearts are with the Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service and the Melton family as they continue to mourn Monday’s passing of firefighter Jordan Melton after he was shot last week at Station 9 in Norwood,” Cedric Sparks, the mayor’s chief of staff, said at the meeting. Read more.
The Missing Children of Alabama
Forty-three children have gone missing in Alabama and never been found.
Forty-three children who didn’t sleep in their own beds last night or didn’t go to their usual classrooms this morning, or hang out with their friends, or report to their jobs, or have families of their own, as far as anyone knows.
That’s just the active missing children cases being investigated by law enforcement agencies in the state now, according to the Alabama Center for Missing & Exploited Children website, as the country marked National Missing Children’s Day on May 25.
There are seven children missing from Jefferson County alone: Eric Raymundo Brito and Miguel Bernal Raymundo, both now 15, of Pleasant Grove; Mardela Beatriz Sebastian Mateo, now 17, of Tarrant; Jefferson Santos, now 6, of Pinson; Danasia Goodon, now 16, of Birmingham; Jason Sims Jr., now 24, of Fairfield; and Asandra Peri Pineda-Orellana, now 18, of Lipscomb.
Some of the children listed as missing by the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Community Information Center search site for missing children have been gone for a day or a month; one has been gone since 1984 and would be 51 today. Read more; see the cases.
WBRC’s New Podcast Explores the Disappearance of Kamille ‘Cupcake’ McKinney
Alabama Has 5th Highest U.S. Gun Death Rate; Study Blames Weak Laws, High Ownership
The Violence Policy Center, a non-profit educational organization, used the most recent CDC data on gun death rates in the U.S. for its analysis. Read more.
