By Safiyah Riddle
Associated Press/Report For America
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Nearly 60 felony cases will be dropped in a small Alabama town because they were compromised by what a grand jury called a “rampant culture of corruption” in the local police department, according to a statement on Wednesday.
The grand jury determined that 58 felony criminal cases had been tainted by corruption in the Hanceville Police Department in northern Alabama, after four officers and the police chief were indicted on a variety of charges related to mishandling or removing evidence from the department’s evidence room.
The indictment included a recommendation that the department be “immediately abolished.”
The case roiled the town of approximately 3,200 people about 45 miles (70 kilometers) north of Birmingham.
Cullman County District Attorney Champ Crocker said that even one compromised case “is too many” but that “the Grand Jury had no other recourse,” in a statement on Wednesday night. He added that most of the cases were drug-related and only a few were personal crimes with victims.
The 58 tossed cases were selected based on an audit conducted by the Alabama State Bureau of Investigations.
The audit found that nearly 40% of all 650 evidence bags and almost a third of all firearms weren’t documented before being stored in the evidence room. There was also a wide array of evidence that appeared to be missing, including firearms, cash and illicit drugs.
Hanceville Mayor Jimmy Sawyer placed the whole department on leave in February, and then following weeks of polarized debate, announced in March that the department would be disbanded and rebuilt from scratch.
A spokesperson for Hanceville’s municipal government did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on Thursday afternoon. ___
Riddle is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.