Two longtime Mobile City Council members say they are concerned about the word “murder” directed at Mobile police stemming from a deadly July 2 altercation that prompted months of heated discussions from the public at council meetings.

Councilman Joel Daves and Councilwoman Gina Gregory, during Tuesday’s council meeting, said they had concerns with the choice of the word used by people who speak out about the Jawan Dallas death during council meetings.

“Using the term ‘murdering,’ I felt it was borderline slander,” Gregory said during the meeting. “It was getting real close.”

Said Daves, “Coming down here and using words like ‘murder’ doesn’t help build relationships in our community.”

Gregory, who is the longest-serving council member first elected in 2005, later told AL.com her comments were directed strictly at people who speak at the podium during council meetings who accuse police of murdering Dallas.

Daves, who has been on the council since 2013, said Thursday he is concerned “with anyone who is saying it.”

“The grand jury composed of citizens of the entire community who looked at evidence and decided there was no criminal conduct on the side of the police officers,” Daves told AL.com, referring to announcement last month by Mobile County District Attorney Keith Blackwood that the grand jury found no wrongdoing by the officers who encountered Dallas and allegedly tased him repeatedly.

Dallas died a short time after his encounter with police. Blackwood, in his news conference last month, said an autopsy report showed that Dallas died from “underlying medical conditions,” and not Tasing.

“Everyone is entitled to be assumed innocent until proven guilty and to use an inflammatory word like ‘murder,’ when the grand jury has determined there is no criminal conduct, to me, it doesn’t heal the wounds within he community.”

The comments come a little more than two weeks since the Dallas family and their attorneys accused Mobile police of murder after they watched police-worn body cam footage of the encounter. The camera footage has not been released to the media or the public.

Phil Williams, Jawan Dallas’ father, said the department “straight-up murdered my son.”

The family, on Monday, announced the filing of a $36 million federal civil lawsuit against the city for the department’s handling of the case. The family’s attorney, Harry Daniels, has said that the body cam footage shows police utilizing their Taser at least 13 times on Dallas, calling it “the worst videos of a police killing that I have ever witnessed.”

Dallas, according to Daniels – who viewed the body cam footage – died after he repeatedly asked police to stop beating on him. Daniels described Dallas as “begging for help,” and having trouble breathing. He has compared Dallas’ death to George Floyd, who was killed during an encounter with Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in 2020, that ignited protests across the country over police brutality and racial injustice. Chauvin, a white police officer, is serving a 21-year prison sentence.

The identifies of the two police officers who encountered Dallas remain unknown. The federal lawsuit only names them as Joe Doe 1 and Joe Doe 2.

A spokesman for the family and their attorneys which includes Daniels and national civil rights attorney Ben Crump, declined to comment on the statements made by Daves and Gregory.

The concerns over the word “murder” represent the first public criticism directed at people, and the Dallas family and their attorneys, who have spoken out against Mobile police in recent months.

Gregory, during her comments on Tuesday, acknowledged that Mobile police officers have approached council members who felt the elected officials “were silent when people came down here” to criticize them.

The comments also came during a meeting in which approximately 50 uniformed police officers attended, many of whom were in opposition to two proposed ordinances the council is considering that address policing. Neither ordinance goes above codifying existing state law or established police procedure.

Robert Clopton, president of the Mobile chapter of the NAACP, said he was “appalled” over seeing the officers in attendance.

Clopton said plenty of questions remain over the grand jury proceedings into Dallas’ death, largely due to the lack of video and body cam evidence of his encounter with police.

Aside from the concerns over how Dallas died, the family and its attorneys have raised issues with why Dallas was initially encountered by police during what was a 911 call over a trespassing complaint within a trailer park in Theodore.

The family’s attorney has accused Mobile police of approaching Dallas when he was not at the location of the initial trespassing call, and for engaging in unnecessary force that led to Dallas’ death.

“As it stands now, I’m with the family and their perception of it and their analysis,” Clopton said. “They are grieving. It really hurts to see a loved one begging for their life and that life be slowly taken away.”

Council meetings have gotten tense in recent weeks. During the Dec. 5 meeting, Councilman Cory Penn and Mobile police Sgt. John Young, a representative of Men United Against Violence, got into a heated exchange over differing viewpoints of policing.

Penn, who represents Mobile’s largest Black council district, blasted Young for what he said was an insinuation that the council was attacking police by considering the ordinances. Young said that city officials should be more outraged over the death of a 9-year-old girl during a Dec. 5 drive-by shooting.

“Preachers come (to the council meetings) and say, ‘the police, the police, the police,’” Young said, criticizing police critics who have spoken for months at council meetings. “But what about the parents? What about the homes? A 9-year-old girl was shot … where is the outrage?

Penn told AL.com this week that he feels everyone has a “right to stand and make a statement” and voice their opinions. But he said he remains perplexed over the opposition to the ordinances. The council voted to hold off for 30 days before reconsidering the ordinances next month after Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office has time to review them.

“Everyone has a right to voice their opinion,” Penn said. “I’m always for freedom of speech and sharing those concerns.”