Hanceville police update

Back in March, the Hanceville Police Department was disbanded by the city. A grand jury found the department had a “culture of corruption.” The police chief, four officers and an officer’s wife were arrested.

Cullman County DA Champ Crocker said that an audit of the department’s evidence locker showed that evidence was missing. Allegations against those arrested include on-duty drug injections, misuse of criminal databases and distribution of controlled substances.

Which raised the question … what about the cases involving all this allegedly compromised evidence?

AL.com’s Patrick Darrington reports that the same grand jury that handed down the indictments reconvened last month and voted to dismiss 58 felony cases.

Crocker said 249 packages of evidence (out of 650 filed by the department) had no associated case number. He said 30 of the 96 guns in the evidence room were undocumented. He said that 78 evidence bags had been torn open and that pills, meth, cocaine and a pistol were missing.

Hanceville Mayor Jim Sawyer has said that the city will rebuild the police department “from the ground up,” and the city council has voted to begin that process.

Presidential work

Former Alabama football coach and current ESPN analyst Nick Saban just might play a role in the new presidential commission on college athletics, reports AL.com’s William Thornton.

Yahoo! Sports reported that President Trump’s commission will study the transfer portal, payments to players, employment status, revenue sharing, Title IX, TV contracts, conference alignments and maybe more.

Watch for a possible presidential executive order soon.

Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump and Saban met last week, and since then the president has been considering such an executive order.

Less money for Sidewalk

The executive director of the Sidewalk Film Center & Cinema said this year’s Sidewalk Film Festival is still on after a $25,000 federal grant was pulled, reports AL.com’s Mary Colurso.

Chloe Cook said Sidewalk’s grant had been approved by this past fall and then in January the NEA gave Sidewalk permission to announce the grant.

But on May 2, an email notice went out from the NEA saying funds were being terminated. Those emails came a few hours after President Trump proposed eliminating the NEA in the next budget.

The film festival has a budget of $400,000, and Sidewalk has an overall budget of around $1.5 million.

This year’s festival is planned for Aug. 18-24. It includes screenings of a couple hundred movies, panel discussions and workshops.

Cook said the Sidewalk folks will be looking at ways to replace that $25,000 or find ways to trim costs.

Goat Hill roundup

Only one day’s left in the 2025 Alabama Legislative session, folks. Here’s a rundown of some of the recent flurry of activity from Goat Hill:

• First, corrections on yesterday’s story about hemp-derived products such as beverages containing THC. Only retailers will be licensed by the ABC board, not manufacturers or wholesalers, and their tax rate will be 10%, not 7%. We didn’t get into this next part, but only the THC/CBD beverages can be sold in grocery stores (not gummies or other products). These were all changes that were made to the bill on its way to final approval Tuesday.
• The FOCUS Act has passed both houses of the Legislature and awaits the governor’s pen. This is the bill that’ll ban the use of cellphones in public-school classrooms.
• A bill to make Juneteenth a state holiday is headed to the governor’s desk. It’s been a federal holiday since 2021, and Gov. Kay Ivey has declared each June 19 to be recognized also by the state, but this bill will make it more permanent.
• Gov. Ivey has already signed a law to take the Birmingham Water Works board in a more regional direction, allowing suburban areas to have more power over the utility. Going forward, only two of the seven members on the board will be from Birmingham; previously the city controlled six of nine seats. A district judge earlier this week turned down the city’s request for a restraining order to keep Ivey from signing the bill.
• And the governor also signed a measure allowing the Alabama Farmers Federation to offer a health-care plan not subject to the same regulations as health-insurance programs.

More Alabama News

By the Numbers

18

That’s how many people authorities accuse Damien McDaniel of killing in just over a year.

Born on This Date

In 1783, Alabama’s second governor Thomas Bibb. He was the brother of Alabama’s first governor, William Bibb. Thomas finished William’s term of office after William was thrown from a horse and died.

In 1940, singer/songwriter and keyboardist and, for a while, the Beach girl in the Beach Boys band Toni Tennille of Montgomery. You might know her best as one-half of Captain & Tennille.

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