A small Alabama city placed its entire police force on administrative leave a day after a grand jury recommended the department be disbanded, saying it has “operated as more of a criminal enterprise than a law enforcement agency.”
Hanceville Mayor Jim Sawyer said Thursday in a statement that the Cullman County Sheriff’s Department will temporarily take over over law enforcement duties as city officials mull the next steps.
Cullman County District Attorney Champ Crocker announced Wednesday that the grand jury had indicted the Hanceville police chief and four of his officers, who are accused of mishandling or removing materials from the department's evidence room.
They have been charged with a variety of offenses, including misuse of state criminal databases and distribution of controlled substances to each other, according to the indictments.
Citing what it called a “rampant culture of corruption,” the grand jury recommended that the department be “immediately abolished.”
“It is disturbing on many, many levels,” Crocker said Thursday by phone. He said there had been unfettered access to the evidence room but declined to discuss specifics of the allegations.
The grand jury found that the department’s mismanagement left the evidence unusable.
The probe began after the State Bureau of Investigations was called in to investigate when a dispatcher who had access to the evidence room was found dead at work, according to Crocker.
An autopsy found that the man died from the combined toxic effects of fentanyl and other drugs, The Cullman Times reported.
Crocker then took the matter before the grand jury.
“I hope the citizens of Hanceville and Cullman County see how seriously we are taking this. The citizens of Hanceville deserve to have public safety,” Crocker said.
The city council will meet Feb. 27 to discuss the future of the police department, the mayor said.
Hanceville is a city of 3,200 people about 45 miles (70 kilometers) north of Birmingham.
The police department had a total of eight officers as of August, according to The Cullman Times.
