HANCEVILLE, Ala. – It’s been nearly a month since five Hanceville Police Department officers, including the police chief, were arrested following an investigation of the department, and at Monday night’s special-called Hanceville City Council meeting at the Hanceville Civic Center, a crowd of locals gathered to voice their concerns and recommendations for the department’s future.
After the council heard public comments from several upset residents, Cullman County Sheriff Matt Gentry took questions from both council members and residents in attendance.
“We took a deputy that’s off duty and we’re paying them overtime to be solely in Hanceville. Just so you know how your deputies work, when our deputies come on duty, they’re not dispatched from the sheriff’s office in the middle of Cullman, they’re down here,” Gentry said. “So, when calls come out, they’re already in your area. Response time is a question we’ve gotten a lot during this. We’ve checked the numbers and right now our response time is the same or similar to what the Hanceville Police Department was providing and so far, it’s been a very smooth process.”
Gentry continued, “Right now, we’re providing 24-hour law enforcement paying overtime and we can do it, but we can’t sustain that forever because our guys are working here on their off days, and we all know you can only work so much before you’re just wore slap out. So right now, it’s averaging about $25,000 per month just in salaries to provide 24-hour law enforcement. That doesn’t count vehicles, fuel or anything else, that’s just for the coverage with deputies assigned that are working in this area. That is something I would ask if the mayor and council could talk about is possibly reimbursing us. It would really help because just like y’all, this was not something that we had prepared for.”
Gentry reiterated that he and the sheriff’s office will be more than willing to assist with Hanceville’s law enforcement needs in whatever way they can regardless of the decision made by the council.
“I’m here to help the mayor and the council, whatever y’all decide. We’ll work with you through that process, whatever it takes to make it good for the community,” he said. “This is a great community. If it wasn’t a great community, we wouldn’t have all these citizens here. You can tell that these citizens love their community, they want good law enforcement and they want good leadership so we’re here to help.”
After speaking with Gentry and several Hanceville residents in attendance, the council members gave their opinions on what would be the best course of action. Councilman Kenneth Cornelius’ motion to suspend the operations of the police department and immediately form a committee to begin the search for a new police chief was approved by the council. At this time, a decision has not been made regarding HPD employees currently on administrative leave. Before making his motion, Cornelius shared his thoughts on the situation and what he thinks would be the best course of action for the City at this point.
“I think that the main concern here after hearing a lot of people voice their opinions is that a police department is something that this community wants. The one thing I want more than anything is to make sure that police department performs and does exactly what it’s supposed to do and have the integrity and the skill set to do it at a high level that we can all be proud of. We’ve heard you and we definitely want that, too. I don’t think there’s a person up here that doesn’t. In my opinion, we would need to take time to evaluate and get a chief hired and bring in an organization to evaluate what it would take to build that infrastructure and what that cost would be,” Cornelius said. “I think it’s going to be a longer period, at least six months. I’m good with a committee finding the right individual that could come in and build the department from the ground up. Start completely fresh. I do hate it for the individuals that had nothing to do with this because it is terrible. There’s no way that this is fair for those individuals, but there’s really nothing we can do as far as being able to afford to keep paying them and pay the sheriff’s department $25,000 per month for deputies. If that’s six months then great, if that’s a year then great, as long as we do it right.”
Earlier Monday, Cullman County District Attorney Champ Crocker released a statement detailing what was missing from the Hanceville Police Department’s evidence room. You can see Crocker’s full report below.
The Tribune will continue to update this story as more information becomes available.
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