Five others resigned Jan. 28, and Jones second-in-command, former Lt. James Bo Savelle III, resigned Jan. 31, resigned after questions about his past. The examiners sharp report was released this month, outlining missing guns, poor financial practices and shoddy storage of evidence, including an unmarked trash bag filled with prescription medicines that did not seem to be associated with any particular case. Officers began to pick up the bags and bring them into the little town hall, said Kimberlee Hudgens, a Brookside dispatcher at the time. He feels the police saw him as prey, and treated him as such. It may cost some money to go through that process, he said. Brookside Mayor Mike Bryan said in a statement, We cannot comment on the lawsuits filed Monday. She called for the second town hall meeting this week.. Givan and Jefferson County Sheriff Mark Pettway held the first town hall, in which 200 people gathered and 31 told stories of harassment and abuse. On July 10th, 2019, 16 days after she paid her ticket, her phone rang. Published: Mar. Brookside, which in 2018 had one full time police officer, now parks a riot control vehicle townspeople call it a tank outside the municipal complex and community center. Lets create our opportunities here and grow Brookside and not do it any other kind of way.. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement, Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement, and Your Privacy Choices and Rights (each updated 1/26/2023). The arresting officers were gone. For context, Birmingham city would have to more than triple the size of its force to equal a ratio of that in Brookside. Brumlow pleaded not guilty, and had to go to court over and over again as the case was postponed. Find Brookside residential property records including property owners, sales & transfer history, deeds & titles, property taxes, valuations, land, zoning records & more. Brookside police didnt just wait for the money to come to them. He was very ugly from the start.. By Tristan Ruppert. This month the town judge, Jim Wooten, announced he would step aside and recuse himself from all pending cases. Brookside officers have been accused in lawsuits of fabricating charges, using racist language and making up laws to stack counts on passersby. YouTubes privacy policy is available here and YouTubes terms of service is available here. Lic. Chana Hodges, one of many people harassed by the Brookside Police Dept.. Brookside Police left their jurisdiction to arrest her at her place of business. Court is now set to resume this Thursday. [Montgomery, Alabama] Former Brookside Police Chief Dennis Ray McCoy, 53, of Dora, was recently convicted of several charges stemming from investigation by the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI), including using his official position for personal gain, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, obtaining criminal offender record information under false pretenses, and computer tampering. McDonald recalled the way Jones ordered staffers not to adjust the temperature in the towns jail cells, so it would remain cold all the time. In 2020, she had explained her case this way to the AGs office: The person threatened me with an arrest if I did not take down my Facebook pictures and posts of their police officers, stop sending emails to the local politicians, as well as others, and show them (Brookside police) that I understand law enforcement practices.. But in 2018 it began building a police empire, hiring more and more officers to blanket its six miles of roads and mile-and-a-half jurisdiction on Interstate 22. Although the town has no towing contract, it had a no-bid relationship with Jetts, a state audit described. In court she pleaded down to driving without a state license less serious than driving while suspended and ultimately got her license back. Thats a 1,478% increase, with 1.7 tows for every household in town. Looking at over the city's audits, the fines and fees were broken out. McDonald was new to policing, but soon grew disillusioned with Jones demands and what he considered broken promises about pay and benefits. Chana Hodges handles billing at a mom-and-pop medical supply store in nearby Fultondale, Ala. She recounts a day in 2020 when her boss walked to the cubicle and told her a police officer was looking for her. Simon said early findings point to a police force that preyed on people who looked like they wouldnt be able to put up much of a fight, because of poverty, race, or previous run-ins with the law. Police stops soared between 2018 and 2020. In 2020 they came to $610,000. The town of Brookside, Alabama holds municipal court once a month. He is still torn, wondering if he should have fought the town harder. One, by Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur would force cities to make the amount of fines and fees they collect public. All rights reserved (About Us). Shes in my sight.. Information found on CountyOffice.org is strictly for informational purposes and does not construe legal, financial or medical advice. It comes in the wake of the policing controversy in Brookside. When youre naive and you work with police, you assume theyre gonna do the right thing, he said. Instead, the arresting officer was listed as Agent JS, while the assisting officer was Agent AR.. The Brookside Police Department, located in Brookside, Alabama is a law enforcement agency that has been granted specific police powers in Jefferson County. In another case, Brookside police last year confiscated a 2014 Honda Civic owned by a man named Sean Wattson, even though Wattson was not driving and was not in the car, according to a lawsuit he filed against the town. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. We will be reviewing the details of the allegations with the Towns legal counsel. Brookside walked away. His listed phone is not accepting calls and he did not respond to emails. The town now faces at least 13 suits or one for every 96 residents. Still, police seized his car, and refused to return it, though they didnt begin official forfeiture proceedings. Not all of them can afford to pay their fines as he did, and some have been put on payment plans. These figures were provided by the city: Brookside Police. Michelle Jones, of Forestdale, has fought the Brookside police department for three years. originally filed on behalf of Cory Thomas, AL.com in January reported how Brookside used fines and forfeitures, Buy newspaper front pages, posters and more. The city is facing at least five federal lawsuits related to its policing. In 2018, when the town had one full-time police officer and a few part-timers, it reported no serious crimes to the Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center. BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - The Alabama House passed a bill that would make it illegal to move police jurisdiction signs. The suit also names 23 current and former officers as individual defendants. Most of the time people get stopped, theyre going to get a ticket. Its an old mining town, tucked in the hills and hollows at the southwest tip of the Appalachians. I saw the same attitude in every officer and every person, he said. Brookside police officers in sworn depositions indicated they did not follow drivers for a full mile and a half before or after the new law was passed, and they continued to write tickets under the old law after the new road rage bill passed. Katie Baggett moved to Brookside in December 2020. James Sebestain Bo Savelle III (Photo courtesy of Hoover Police). The complaint alleges numerous constitutional violations, and we believe the citizens need to be protected from illegal actions by the Town of Brookside.. The towns credibility was in tatters. An officer insisted on taking her home which embarrassed her. The town has also grown its police force in size and now has one officer for every 144 residents. They were shining these flashlights in my car and it was daylight. Brookside until recently was known for its quirky Russian food festival and the states only onion-domed Russian Orthodox Church. The town became the poster child for policing for profit when AL.com published a series of revelations Jan. 19. A client came to him after she was stopped for driving in the left lane of the interstate, a crime he insists did not exist at the time. We dont care about tickets, Jones said. If we have to come get ya, well make you famous!, When you look at their Facebook pages its almost like they are bullies. One man said residents don't want just resignations, they want people going to jail. He complained about Jones but no one listened, including current town leaders, he said. (WBRC) The city now announcing several steps to reform the police department. called for the second town hall meeting this week. Brookside is just 10 miles north of Birmingham, but in ways it is ages away. Find 12 external resources related to Brookside Police Department. Mayor Bryan announced he had pulled police officers from Interstate 22 as the Alabama Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission and the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts swooped in for audits. I dont condone it, but you know, Im not the chief out there.. If you put anything on Facebook, he retaliated verbally to you, said Brookside resident Tammy Price. The Town of Brookside forced Plaintiffs and the Plaintiff classes to give up their property and pay illegal fines through fear, intimidation, and under color of official right by imposing fines not authorized by law, seizing property without the legal right to do soand by threat of jail time unless illegal fines were paid or property unlawfully forfeited, the suit says. She said one officer told her Well, we didnt say it wasnt working. The officers, though many, were not well paid. That story unleashed a torrent of testimonials from people who said they were victimized by Brookside police, and prompted state lawmakers from both parties to call for investigations and reforms. What I noticed the pattern to be among us is this: If you are in the car by yourself, youre gonna get a ticket, she said. Police put her in a patrol car and searched her vehicle for drugs. In less than three months, she said, Brookside separately pulled over both her and her housemate and impounded both of their vehicles. Sheriff Pettway gaped at the Brookside ratio. Brookside hired Ken Simon, a former circuit judge and current member of the University of Alabama Board of Trustees, to investigate its own department. Baggett and the officers went back to look at the tag light, and it worked. The issue gained prominence in the wake of the 2014 fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, a Black teenager, in Ferguson, Missouri, when a report by a St. Louis-area public defender group found that Black drivers in Ferguson were more likely to be stopped by police and local courts were abusing their power by charging high fines and fees for nonviolent offenses, sometimes leading to arrests when they went unpaid. It raised police officers hourly pay to $18, established a police reserve program and rescinded tax collection from areas of police jurisdiction outside the town limits which applies mainly to people in nearby Mt. And I didnt realize that until some time had passed.. You know, weve had a lot of issues with Brookside.. Then she saw the officer tap the radio on his chest. When Jones was hired as chief in 2018, he was the only full-time police officer, he said in sworn testimony for a lawsuit filed against him and the city. Click on a feature to learn more. Hudgens said she quit as a dispatcher because of the way the town handled and in her mind, glossed over Savelles arrest. Lacey Shelton experienced that when she was jailed last year on charges she disputes. The courtroom and the parking lot are packed with people. A year before, Brooksides low-key, one-man police department had begun to metastasize, at the behest of town leaders, into an insatiable band of reverse Robin Hoods, stopping so many cars, detaining and arresting so many people that it couldnt keep up. Officers appeared to approach drivers with the presumption that they were guilty of something, many drivers would later say. Yet that is hard to swallow for those who line up for court and face financial ruin because of citations. Baggett asked about her vehicle on the way. For most of the past decade it saw little crimeonly 55 . She said she was asked to pat down female inmates, and was once made to perform a cavity search on a woman suspected of having drugs. 13333-A Hwy. Vincent Witt, who sued Brookside after his treatment there. "What if $150 is the cost of choosing between feeding my child, getting their medicine or paying this ticket?" It is unclear whether the resignations were forced, or if the officers chose to leave on their own, or a mixture of both. Vincent Witt and his sister, Tareya, Chief Jones tried to intimidate her in a social media message, Police in this tiny Alabama town suck drivers into legal black hole, Pastor, sister say rogue Alabama police force sought revenge, This Alabama county fastens ankle monitors on hundreds who arent convicted of crimes, Life on an ankle monitor in Alabama: $10 a day and inevitable imperfections, Buy newspaper front pages, posters and more. Government websites often end in .gov or .mil. But his approach which posited that Brookside was dirty, unsafe and drug-infested offended other residents, who argued drugs exist everywhere. And a Brookside man told AL.com police in the town pulled him over with blue lights and told him there would be consequences if he posted more about the police on Facebook. Lots of them. Brookside has operated its police and court system with the primary objective of obtaining revenue from motorists traveling on or near Interstate-22, Harris lawyers wrote in a suit filed last year. Tuesday February 1, 2022. Asked why that was the case, Bryan responded there had been an error, that the heading for the Municipal Court Fund was actually the police department budget. Privacy Policy BIRMINGHAM, Ala.Six hundred forty percent.That's how much Brookside, Alabama's police increased its revenue from fines, fees and forfeitures from 2018 to 2020. She was ticketed for improper tag light and driving while suspended, and her vehicle was towed. The resignations include former chief Mike Jones . She thought the complaint was long forgotten or closed. And the town bought in. Terms and Conditions. Sorry for the typo, the mayor wrote. 2023 Police Jurisdiction Deannexations, Ordinances and Maps, Local Cities and Counties Tax Rates Text File, Alabama Severe Weather Preparedness Sales Tax Holiday, 2016 Police Jurisdiction Annexations, Deannexations & Ordinances, 2015 Police Jurisdiction Annexations, Deannexations & Ordinances. He posted his displeasure on Facebook, he said, and then a police officer stopped him, blue lights flashing. Will Ainsworth requested a state audit, and amid calls for state and federal investigations. Reporting Agency: Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, Alabama. The man had admitted to the police and to the former mayor that he had dumped trash, though his lawyer argued the confession was coerced and the charges based on dates the police simply guessed about. But an officer grabbed the phone and threw it to the ground, breaking it, the lawsuit says. Dawson argued in a lawsuit against Brookside and Chief Jones that Brookside has continuously used the false left lane violation as a reason to stop and detain hundreds of motorists. A California man is facing multiple felony charges in Alabama after allegedly kidnapping a woman at knifepoint and holding her hostage in Brookside on Sunday.The Brookside Police Department said officers responded to a report of a woman being kidnapped by a man in driving a white van around 2:45 p.m. on Brookside Coalburg Road. Do you understand what you are charged with? the judge asked on that first Thursday in December. Ive never seen a possession case split like that, he said. Tornado activity: Brookside-area historical tornado activity is slightly above Alabama state average.It is 161% greater than the overall U.S. average.. On 4/8/1998, a category F5 (max. It went from towing 50 vehicles in 2018 to 789 in 2020 - each carrying fines. Police take an oath to protect and serve the public. "Their whole financial existence starts to spiral, and it was all over a light on their car not working.". Time after time they say they were pulled over by multiple officers in multiple vehicles for minor charges such as expired tag or following too closely, that they were searched, towed, and forced to pay large fines for violations many say they did not commit. Her lawyers argue that the city uses obscure possible violations to justify stopping and searching passersby, hoping to add more offenses in a sort of highway lottery to fill the coffers. I said, Where are yall taking my car? she said.