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Nearly 60 felony cases volition beryllium dropped successful a tiny Alabama municipality due to the fact that they were compromised by what a expansive assemblage called a "rampant civilization of corruption" successful the section constabulary department, according to a connection connected Wednesday.
The expansive assemblage determined that 58 felony transgression cases had been tainted by corruption successful the Hanceville Police Department successful bluish Alabama, aft 4 officers and the constabulary main were indicted connected a assortment of charges related to mishandling oregon removing grounds from the department's grounds room.
A Hanceville nonmigratory gives an affectional grounds astir whether the section constabulary section should beryllium disbanded, successful Hanceville, Ala., Feb. 27, 2025.
Safiyah Riddle / AP
The indictment included a proposal that the section beryllium "immediately abolished."
The lawsuit roiled the municipality of astir 3,200 radical astir 45 miles northbound of Birmingham.
Cullman County District Attorney Champ Crocker said that adjacent 1 compromised lawsuit "is excessively many" but that "the Grand Jury had nary different recourse," successful a connection connected Wednesday night. He added that astir of the cases were drug-related and lone a fewer were idiosyncratic crimes with victims.
The 58 tossed cases were selected based connected an audit conducted by the Alabama State Bureau of Investigations.
The audit recovered that astir 40% of each 650 grounds bags and astir a 3rd of each firearms weren't documented earlier being stored successful the grounds room. There was besides a wide array of grounds that appeared to beryllium missing, including firearms, currency and illicit drugs.
Hanceville Mayor Jimmy Sawyer placed the full section connected permission successful February, and past pursuing weeks of polarized debate, announced successful March that the section would beryllium disbanded and rebuilt from scratch.
A spokesperson for Hanceville's municipal authorities did not instantly respond to an emailed petition for remark connected Thursday afternoon.
Riddle is simply a corps subordinate for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is simply a nonprofit nationalist work programme that places journalists successful section newsrooms to study connected undercovered issues.
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