Feature Story

Annexation efforts bring law enforcement friction to surface

By Kevin Lee

Associate editor

Despite recent criticism from the ranks of Mobile County government, Mobile Police Department Chief Philip Garrett feels the department is headed in the right direction.

“We’re not going backwards, no,” Garrett recently told Lagniappe.

Compelling stories of defection and disarray have leaked through the community, spurred by the rancorous tug-of-war over annexation in West Mobile.

A recent move by the city to acquire control of certain areas containing a heavy retail presence met resistance from the county government, led in large part by Mobile County Commission President Stephen Nodine.

“They’re not being forthright with people,” Nodine told press recently. “They continue to promise things like increased public safety, but that’s going to be hard to do with the crime rate rising in the city limits.”

Recent FBI statistics reveal that characterization as a mixed bag. The federal agency’s 2007 Uniform Crime Report, released Sept. 15, said property crime dropped almost 10 percent to a five year low with 14,136 reported for 2007. Property crimes accounted for over 90 percent of Mobile crimes last year.

However, robberies escalated for a third straight year, 66 percent of the violent crimes committed. Thus far in 2008, MPD estimates its 500-plus robberies in the precincts as 74 percent of all violent offenses.

In violent crime, the murder rate climbed in 2007, up to 38, while the rape and aggravated assault numbers fell.

Twenty-eight murders have occurred thus far in 2008.

In general, over 8,000 crimes have been logged in Mobile to this point of 2008.

“Things can’t be going well,” Nodine told Lagniappe, “Or they wouldn’t have had 42 officers leave this year.”

Garrett confirmed that 39 officers have left the force this year, but insisted numbers are in line with expectation.

“We typically lose, in the course of a year, 45 to 50 officers and we’re about on par with that,” Garrett said. “Average per year is 42.45 over a 10 year average. We had a little surge there in the summer but I think we’ve leveled off and we’ll wind up on average.”

He also feels the numbers are deceptive.

“Now that’s the one who’ve left, not the ones we’ve hired,” Garrett said. “So we didn’t necessarily have a net loss of this many people. We have people that have replaced those positions. Some of those are retirements.”

“We also had some additional positions created because of the annexation of Mobile Terrace,” Garrett said. “If we annex next year, we intend to hire more.”

The annexation and extended responsibilities are a concern of Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran, who told press he would be unwilling to cede focus on the annexed areas.

The annexed areas cover 38 square miles, an 18 percent increase in territory with over 8,000 residents.

“How are they going to police that when they have fewer officers now than they did six months ago?” Cochran said. He has insisted area emergency operators keep his forces as priority responders.

“We’ve got more deputies per 1,000 residents,” Cochran claimed. “And I have a responsibility to these citizens to keep them safe.”

‘The gateway for us letting them (MPD) have it will be manpower,” Cochran explained. “When they’ve got what I think are sufficient numbers, when they have good response times and deployment, we’ll let them have it.”

Having served as chief of police for the City of Mobile for 10 years, Cochran was first appointed sheriff in by Gov. Bob Riley in June of 2006 after securing the Republican nomination in the election. He won the subsequent election.

Cochran’s name was also alongside 10 Mobile County elected officials who publicly vowed to fight annexation.

The sheriff admits the county has seen a rise in robberies along with the city, but that enforcement is different.

“It’s easier to contain robberies in rural areas. There are less places to hide,” Cochran said.

Garrett admitted the police department’s numbers aren’t where they need to be.

“We are budgeted at 542,” the chief said. “Now 10 of those positions came at a budget amendment in August so we’re not really working against that number, we’re 532 up until then. And we probably have about 515, 520 on payroll today.”

He feels help is on the way though.

“Now you have to time these things with academy classes,” Garrett said. “We started a class (numbered at nine to 10 by Garrett) back in June and we’ll finish up on Oct. 14 and we’ll move them out. Now we’ll start another class in about the middle of January. We hope to have 30, 35 officers in that class.”

“We’ve got plenty of applicants,” Garrett continued. “I got a call from a young man that wasn’t even on the list I’ve got because he was number 176. We’ve got the pool out there we just have to get to them.”

The chief attributes some of the drop to average attrition.

“We probably lose about half of our applicants,” Garrett said. “Some of them go other places by their own choice. Lose some of them to drug screen, lose some to polygraph, lose some that just aren’t cut out for it. If you took a hundred names you might get 30 to 40 good ones out of there, but that’s standard.”

Garrett sees the end of 2009 as when the force will reach its target.

Misconduct

Rumors of incidents involving criminal behavior by officers have drifted across the community.

An officer was said to have gone through a fast food in Grand Bay with his genitals displayed while in uniform. A sheriff’s deputy was in line behind the officer and employees told the deputy the occurrence was commonplace with him.

Garrett confirmed there was an investigation involving the officer which was handled quickly. “The investigation was initiated, (the officer) resigned.”

The officer in question wasted little time handing in the notice.

“(It was) very quickly after the allegation,” Garrett said. “It’s probably a year ago. I was out of town when they called me and told me the accusation had been made and by the time I got back he had turned his stuff in.”

Another alleged incident involved an officer who supposedly brandished a firearm while seizing control of a young woman at a party.

“There was an accusation against that officer and he turned in his resignation,” Garrett said. “Once he did that (resigned) then we lost control of anything we could do from an administrative standpoint.”

A third story involved two law enforcement officers who were rumored to have met an underage woman at a local bar and retired to one of their residences for sexual relations. Supposedly, one left the next morning while the other continued with the liaison. A visual recording of the incident was said to have been made.

“(The officer) left here, I’m going to guess, six or eight months ago and was working for the Mobile County Sheriff Department,” Garrett responded. “At the time of this accusation, (the officer) was a deputy. But he doesn’t work there anymore.”

Cochran confirmed that particular officer’s one-time employment with the Mobile County Sheriff Department. Lagniappe has chosen to omit the officers’ names because no one would confirm the specific allegations surrounding these resignations and suspension.

“He was working for us but was a probationary employee and didn’t make it through that probationary period,” Cochran stated.

That officer is technically still on probation.

“(The officer) does (work in law enforcement),” Garrett said. “My understanding is that the complaint from this female has been turned over to the district attorney’s office to be evaluated by a grand jury. I think they’re going to hear this in October and we’ve got an internal investigation on (the officer), but we’re not going to conclude this until such time we see where the criminal side is going.”

Garrett said the incident occurred roughly four months ago.

Pay issues

Discontent has emerged with its genesis being in officers’ wallets. Former officers have said a 15 percent pay raise was promised before the last annexation for their support. When a raise along the six percent range was announced, and supposedly the bottom payblocks eliminated, grumbling ensued.

Garrett confirmed there has been a change in pay status after the Mobile County Personnel Board contracted a Georgia-based firm, Condrey and Associates, to survey how much local agencies would need to increase wages to meet regional averages.

“This Condrey Group came back and gave us ranges like A, B, C, D,” Garrett explained. “Where we were in the range they presented were probably somewhere like C and D as to how we compared to other agencies across the region. So they gave every entity an option that said you going to have to adopt one of these so which one of these do you want?”

Garrett told Lagniappe after months of months of evaluation, the city and county decided to adopt Plan B.

“So, Plan B of Condrey raised the starting salary of a police officer from $25,600 to $29,600, something like that, roughly 10 percent,” Garrett said. “So in essence it raised the starting salary.”

The chief said sour feelings arose from misunderstandings.

“So when Condrey was enacted, a lot of folks got a five percent raise or a 5.5 percent raise, but it put them up on a level with comparable agencies across the South,” Garrett said. “So, the bottom got the biggest impact, somewhere in that four-to-five-year range got a five percent increase, and the greatest impact from Condrey probably impacted the lowest paid employee of a civilian nature that got closer to a 40 percent raise.”

And the expectations of a 15 percent raise?

“I don’t know the answer to that,” Garrett said. “The discussion about Condrey was out there for a while, being floated around but nobody knew what the impact was going to be because they hadn’t put it to pencil, they hadn’t figured out the numbers and they were waiting out the personnel board to sit down and figure out what it was going to be.”

He thinks the natural tendency of hearsay took their toll.

“Now I’m sure a lot of folks thought, ‘Well it’s going to be this’ and that probably got started somewhere and I heard it myself,” Garrett said. “But I said, ‘Where’d that come from?’ I’ve never used a percentage or dollar amount in anything because I didn’t know. I didn’t know what we were going to get until this thing was given to us back in August, and it was rejected to start the first week of September.”

“Would I like to have seen more? Sure, absolutely,” Garrrett said. “But did I know what it was? No. Did I give a percentage? No. I did say that I wanted to achieve parity with the Mobile County Sheriff’s Department.”

The chief also dispels rumors involving the eradication of overtime as impossible.

“There’s so many things that come up in the course of a year that are unexpected, that you can’t prepare for,” Garrett said. “Something as simple as a haz-mat wreck on the interstate could generate $20,000 worth of overtime. This year the number on the budget was cut 50 percent on paper and went to, I don’t know what it was started, they say it was $5 million last year, so $2.5, $2.7.”

Garrett described changes in overtime tabulations.

“The city for whatever reason years ago had adopted ‘40 hours paid,’ simply meaning it was more lenient,” Garrett said. “The definition has changed to ‘hours worked.’That’s probably going to cut a half-million dollars off the budget right there.”

He also described resistance.

“Now, has there been some fussing? Sure because they got used to that,” Garrett said. “But I think people won’t be as likely to step up and take a sick day or just not come to work one day realizing that’s going to affect their overtime. It’s a positive side for me because if they don’t use that, they’re at work.”

Metro safety?

County Commissioner Nodine feels the answer to any problems here is a bold step in another direction.

“I think consolidation would work here, getting the county and city under one umbrella,” Nodine said. “Jacksonville, Florida has consolidated services and they save a lot of money.”

A former Mobile City Council member, Nodine moved to the Mobile County Commission when appointed by Gov. Riley after securing the Republican nomination in June of 2004.

While Nodine campaigned on the idea of some consolidated services in the following election, specifically touting the efficiency regarding mapping and insurance, he rejected Democratic challenger Milton Morrow’s idea of combined law enforcement services.

“It seems as though Mr. Morrow has taken a theme that I ran on in consolidating services,” Nodine told the Press-Register in 2004. “To consolidate police and fire into a countywide department is unfeasible and not very well thought-out on Mr. Morrow’s part.”

When asked about a specific plan for combining law enforcement now, Nodine had no particulars.

“We would definitely need a study to get a detailed plan for doing that,” Nodine said. “I have to meet with the South Alabama Regional Planning Commission soon so maybe I can mention something to them about finding some money for a study.”

Nodine described hints of a rift between the city and county denizens

“I never hear from my constituents that are in the city limits,” Nodine said. “You know I’m their guy, too. And when I moved from the city to the county, I had some problems because I was a ‘city boy.’”

He sees the misunderstanding as a result of tactics.

“There’s not a lot of trust out here for the city government because of things like how this annexation move was handled,” Nodine said. “The county citizens would have liked to sat down and talked it out instead of the way it was done.”

He finds it no coincidence only retail areas were targeted for annexation.

“I think there might be some in the city who don’t want the citizens out here too involved,” Nodine said, “because it’s 80 percent Republican and that would dilute their political base.”

The commissioner expressed sympathy with the political players involved.

“I know (Mayor of Mobile) Sam Jones and I like him, but he’s got some things he has to work with,” Nodine said. “Mike Dow was a great cheerleader but he left Sam with a financial mess.”

Kevin Lee is Lagniappe associate editor. Contact him at klee@lagniappemobile.com.

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