Mobile and Montgomery mayors took action Friday to either announce the removal or press forward with the dismissal of their police chiefs.

Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson, in a statement Friday, said he will recommend the Mobile City Council vote to remove Police Chief Paul Prine from his position. In Montgomery, Mayor Steven Reed announced on the same day that he had accepted the resignation of Police Chief Darryl Albert, effectively immediately.

Albert had been Montgomery’s police chief since March 2022. Prine has been Mobile’s police chief since October 2021. Both chiefs have lengthy careers in law enforcement — Albert has more than 30 years of experience in law enforcement and was Commander of the Special Operations Division for the New Orleans Police Department while Prine worked his way up the ranks of the Mobile Police Department while amassing 27 years within the agency.

Montgomery resignation

Albert issued his resignation amid scandal.

“Today, Darryl Albert informed me that he is resigning from his post as Chief of Police, and I have accepted his resignation,” Reed said in a news release. The mayor said during a news conference earlier on Friday to a case that involved sexual harassment allegations in the department, which he first learned about last month.

“Improving public safety is a priority for our city,” Reed said in a statement. “We are committed to confronting violent crime with community-based solutions.”

The department’s deputy chief John Hall is serving as the acting chief.

Mobile dispute

In Mobile, Prine has been on paid administrative leave more than a week after clearing out his office and then blasting the Stimpson administration through electronic media and during a public rally, alleging improprieties within the city’s leadership over intelligence-led policing and raising questions about contracts to investigate his department.

“Over the last 10 days, we have all listened to allegations concerning city officials and their families, false accusations of impropriety and conspiracy theories,” Stimpson said in a statement. “I’ve watched the negative impact this has had on our community long enough. It is time for the situation to be resolved.”

Stimpson is sponsoring a resolution requesting at least five of the seven Mobile City Council members vote to support the dismissal of Prine as police chief.

“Despite every effort to avoid this path of submitting a resolution to the City Council, it seems to be the only option,” he said. “Under the Zoghby Act that established Mobile’s current city government, the police chief is one of several positions that can only be appointed or removed with a vote from five city council member. Despite taking this action, we are still hopeful to reach a more amicable resolution.”

Prine, in an interview with AL.com Thursday, said he has not been in contact with anyone from the Stimpson administration nor any member of the city council since he first raised questions over contracting and his inability to oversee the budgets and make financial decisions related to cyber-intelligence within the Mobile Police Department.

“These recent events have drastically impacted the morale of the Mobile Police Department and painted the City of Mobile in a negative light,” Stimpson said. “Our officers are among the best in the country. These men and women put their lives on the line to protect this community every day, and they deserve clear leadership without continued distractions. As mayor, my first responsibility is public safety, and it is a responsibility I take very seriously.”

Prine, in his comments to AL.com, said he has not spoken to anyone with the administration since April 9.

“I am not sure what the end game is,” he said on Thursday. “I have made it clear in the media that I’m only willing to go as far as the administration continues to push. It’s my reputation they have tarnished. There is still a way for me not to be the chief, but still resolve this. The administration in good faith has to start this conversation and, in order to do that, there has to be concession made to a whole lot of issues whether it’s operations to the department’s financial improprieties. The administration needs to look in and do the right thing.”

Prine said he has not forwarded his concerns to the Mobile County District Attorney’s Office to investigate, though he said it’s a possibility.

Mobile investigations

The council will also vote on contract to hire a special counsel that will assist with investigating Prine’s claims that include, among other things:

• Lack of the chief’s control over the Mobile Police Department’s intelligence division, also referred to as the Gulf Coast Technology Center that was established by current Chief of Staff James Barber, the city’s former police chief.
• Alleged failures of the ShotSpotter program and the commissioner of a third-party peer review and investigation by a company, 321z Insights LLC. The company was hired for $92,000 in November 2023, and Prine has said that all but one invoice has been paid to the company for work that he said has not been detailed. Prine has said that a scope of work was supposed to be disclosed with each payment, but he said the only description attached to work is listed as “consultancy.”
• Failure of the city to address or resolve written grievances filed by Prine. The city, in an information request, released a grievance Prine filed against Rob Lasky, the executive director of public safety, for allegedly making disparaging remarks about the chief in front of a subordinate.
• Collusion between city officials and/or third parties in an attempt to silence or remove Prine from his position.
• Improper attempts to control or run the Mobile Police Department by members of the Stimpson administration.
• Allegations that contracts had been improperly entered into without consent from the Mobile City Council.

“The Council is mindful that its investigatory powers should be reserved for only the most serious matters,” the resolution reads. The investigation is based on the “severity of the complaints” made by Prine, combined with the “sensitivity and importance of his position.”

“If the cause of and truth or falsity of these complaints are not fully investigated and addressed, the potential exists for malaise and loss of efficiency at the Mobile Police Department as well as the City Administration more broadly, and an erosion of and loss of public confidence in the City of Mobile,” the resolution continues.

The council is also expected to receive a report into the policies and procedures on the use of force within the department. That report, conducted by former federal prosecutor Kenyen Brown, has been called a “sham” by Prine.

Stimpson authorized the report in November following a deadly pre-dawn raid — the fourth time in the past year in which a Black man died during an encounter with a Mobile police officer.

In Stimpson’s statement from last week, he said preliminary findings of Brown’s review uncovered disturbing instances of Prine’s authoritarian style, irreconcilable differences between Prine and other public safety officials, and a series of “frivolous” complaints, which Stimpson said were “demonstrably false.”

“I was shocked and disappointed to hear that at one open roll call in the first precinct, several officers who were present at the time confirmed that Prine said something to the effect of ‘Don’t pay attention to what I say in the media, f— the public,’” Stimpson said in his statement.

Stimpson said the information uncovered led him to make a change.