Public Safety

Protests and Defense Meet AG Action in Bradford Case

Reactions to the attorney general’s decision not to press a case against the Hoover police officer who shot Emantic “E.J.” Bradford Jr. on Thanksgiving night continued Wednesday. Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato said in press conference that the city will give its full support to the officer, who has not been officially named, if civil suits are filed in the case. City information officer Melanie Posey said the city had deemed the findings of the report thorough and complete. Read more.

by Cheryl Slocum

AG Marshall: Hoover Police Officer Was Justified in Fatal Shooting

WBHM In a new report released Tuesday, the Alabama Attorney General’s Office says the officer who shot and killed Emantic Bradford Jr. Thanksgiving night was justified. Read more.

Protests and Defense Meet AG Action in Bradford Case

by Miranda Fulmore, WBHM 90.3

Birmingham Police Face Biggest Backlog in Sexual Assault Kits Not Submitted for Analysis

Rhiannon Reese of Crisis Center Birmingham says she doesn’t want to play the blame game about sexual assault kits not submitted for analysis to Alabama’s forensic lab. The clinical director and rape response coordinator of Crisis Center Birmingham was reacting to an inventory that shows that the Birmingham Police Department handled about 87 percent of the sexual assault kits provided by Jefferson County women since 1985 but not passed on for forensic analysis. The inventory was conducted by the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative of the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office. “I don't want to say, ‘Well, this is so and so's fault,’” Reese said. “I know that the people that are doing the investigations right now are not the people that were there, like in the ’80s and ’90s, or even the early 2000s. They weren't the ones who let this happen.”

The Sexual Assault Kit Initiative points a questioning finger at the Birmingham Police Department. An inventory of 3,944 sexual assault kits provided to Birmingham police found that 3,391 were not submitted for testing. That’s nearly 86 percent of the kits provided to Birmingham police found in that inventory. The inventory of rape kits for all the law enforcement jurisdictions in Jefferson County found 3,876 of 4,999 were not submitted to be analyzed by the forensics agency. Read more.

by Solomon Crenshaw Jr