With approximately 50 uniformed police officers in attendance Tuesday, the Mobile City Council put a temporary halt to two separate ordinances codifying Alabama state law and city procedures on the handling of body cam footage and restricting pre-dawn raids and so-called “no knock” warrants.

The council voted 5-2 on each matter, and requested city attorneys seek an opinion from Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall on whether the council is overstepping its legal authority by enacting ordinances overseeing police activity.

A supermajority of the council decided to wait another 30 days – until January 11 – before reconsidering each ordinance that surfaced last month as a response to a rash of complaints over policing in Mobile during the past several months.

“We need to put in something that sticks,” said Councilman Cory Penn who supports the ordinances that he says do not go above and beyond state law and follow already established police procedures.

The two ordinances do the following:

• Ban no-knock search warrants and pre-dawn raids, something which is already being done as a result of an order from Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson last month after a tragic Nov. 13 pre-dawn raid in which a 16-year-old – who was not the person police were looking for – was shot and killed. The bans include limited exceptions.
• Requires authorities who deny the release of body cam footage to provide a legal reason for the denial under Alabama law, similar to the provisions that are currently in place through a new state law enacted on Sept. 1.

Said Penn, “One day, the police chief will retire. I won’t be here forever. The truth of the matter is a procedure doesn’t stick. The next chief can come in and change it and they don’t have to come to the council.”

Zoghby violation

But some new concerns, which did not exist during a council committee meeting over the ordinances last week, surfaced within the past several days over whether the council was violating the Zoghby Act, the 1985 Alabama state law that established Mobile’s council-mayor form of government.

The law gives the council legislative ability to set policy, but also limits how much authority elected officials have over subordinates of the mayor’s administration. The police department falls under the mayor’s purview.

“What’s being called into question is the use of an ordinance to govern polices and procedures of the police department,” said James Barber, chief of staff to Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson.

Councilwoman Gina Gregory, who along with Councilman Josh Woods voted “No” on the 30-day holdover, said she feels the ordinances are unlawful and encouraged them to be tabled until after Marshall’s office had a chance to provide a review.

She said she did not believe 30 days was long enough to give the Attorney General time to consider them.

“Why are we not codifying what the fire department does, or what Public Services does?” Gregory said. “It’s the same principle (as with the police department). I believe we are overstepping our authority with Zoghby and state law.”

Councilman William Carroll said the council has the authority to be policymakers and vote on ordinances that establish city policy if they do not intrude into the agency’s day-to-day procedures.

Carroll expressed concerns over how the concerns over the ordinances will be raised before Marshall. The Republican Attorney General has been adamant in his support for long-established forms of policing and has expressed his concerns over police reform initiatives since he took office in 2017.

Marshall’s office did not respond to an immediate request for comment.

“We know however the question is written will dictate the outcome of the response,” Carroll said. “There is clearly some confusion between policy and procedure.”

Penn said he hopes Marshall will deliver his legal opinion on the city’s requests but added that neither ordinance should be viewed as an “attack on police.”

“A lot of time people put a law in place and send it to the AG, that maybe it’s viewed as an attack,” Penn said. “It’s not an attack. It’s for their protection as well.”

Police viewpoints

Police officers who showed up to the council meeting view it differently.

“We don’t think the city council should have authority to pass an ordinance over the police department,” said Sarah Badon, vice-president of the Police Benevolent Association of Mobile.

Mobile Police Sgt. John Goodwin said the Zoghby Act prohibits the council from adopting the ordinances, and that federal and state law allows “no-knock” warrants to be executed.

“Passing this ordinance will have a devastating effect on the morale of the men and women of the police department … and fosters mistrust in the communities we serve,” Goodwin said.

Mobile Police Chief Paul Prine, who was at the council meeting, said he supported the position from the officers, but that he did not coordinate their appearance before the council.

“My officers have a right to disagree and dissent on what the city council is trying to do irrespective of my opinion,” Prine said.

The council meeting was the largest showing of Mobile police inside Government Plaza since controversies over policing erupted earlier this year. Those issues have generated widespread attention in recent months stemming from the handling of the Jawan Dallas death following an encounter with two police officers in Theodore.

The officers involved in that incident have since been allowed to return to their patrols and a grand jury found no wrongdoing with how they conducted themselves while encountering Dallas.

The Dallas family, after months of pleading to review the body cam footage of his encounter with police, have since said — after reviewing the footage for the first time last month — that the police department was responsible for the 36-year-old’s death.

The body cam footage not been released publicly. On Monday, a $36 million federal lawsuit was filed against the city.

Further exacerbating concerns was the killing of the 16-year-old during a pre-dawn police raid. The teenager was not the person police were searching for during a warrant for a marijuana-related arrest of his brother. The teenager’s death was the second time in one year in which a Mobile police officer shot and killed someone who was not the person police were searching for while conducting a raid.

The Nov. 13 incident prompted Stimpson to announce a ban on most pre-dawn search warrants and announced that former U.S. District Attorney Kenyen Brown was conducting a review of the agency’s policies and procedures. That review is still ongoing.

“We understand what is going on in the community and understand the outcry of the City Council,” Prine said, adding that “out of a spirit of cooperation,” he is supporting Stimpson’s ban on pre-dawn raids.

Councilman Ben Reynolds said the proposed ordinances are surfacing at a time when council meetings are filled with emotions and hearing from constituents demanding action over the fallout from the Dallas case, and other policing issues that have raised concerns in Mobile.

“There is a strong desire for members to take immediate action,” Reynolds said. “It sort of clouds our legislative step-by-step process to make sure we fully understand an issue, get a vote on it and pass a policy that will last generations.”