Grand jury recommends Alabama police department be ‘immediately abolished’

An Alabama grand jury has recommended that a city’s police department be “immediately abolished,” finding there is a “rampant culture of corruption,” officials said Wednesday while announcing the indictment of five of the agency’s officers, including its police chief.

Five Hanceville police officers were arrested and charged amid a probe into the department, Cullman County District Attorney Champ Crocker said. The spouse of one of the officers was also charged, he said.

“This is a sad day for law enforcement, but at the same time, it is a good day for the rule of law,” Crocker said during a press briefing on Wednesday.

Crocker provided limited details on the case. Though the investigation encompassed the department’s evidence room and the death of a Hanceville dispatcher, 49-year-old Christopher Michael Willingham, who was found dead from a toxic drug combination at work, officials said.

The Cullman County grand jury found that the Hanceville Police Department has “failed to account for, preserve and maintain evidence and in doing so has failed crime victims and the public at large,” making the evidence “unusable,” Crocker said.

The grand jury further found that Willingham’s death was “the direct result of the Hanceville Police Department’s negligence, lack of procedure, general incompetence and disregard for human life,” Crocker said.

None of the defendants were charged in Willingham’s death, Crocker said. Though the “unfettered access that a lot of people had” to the evidence room is the basis of the grand jury’s finding regarding the dispatcher’s death, Crocker said.

“One of the most concerning things that we discovered in this process is that the Hanceville Police Department’s evidence room was not secured,” Crocker said.

Crocker said that Willingham was given access, “like a lot of other people,” to the evidence room, including on his last day at work. The dispatcher died on Aug. 23, 2024, with the cause of death determined to be the “combined toxic effects of fentanyl, gabapentin, diazepam, amphetamine, carisoprodol and methocarbamol,” and the manner of death an accident, according to the state medical examiner’s autopsy report.

When asked if Willingham may have been exposed to fentanyl that was not kept in a secure place, Crocker said, “Nothing was secure about the evidence room. And when Mr. Willingham was discovered, there was evidence in his office.”

A municipal judge entered an order on Wednesday calling for an audit of the evidence room, Crocker said.

Among those charged are Hanceville Police Chief Jason Shane Marlin, who was charged with failure to report an ethics crime and tampering with physical evidence, Crocker said.

Officers Cody Alan Kelso and Jason Scott Wilbanks were charged with computer tampering, tampering with physical evidence, conspiracy to commit a controlled substance crime and use of an official position for personal gain, Crocker said.

Officer William Andrew Shelnutt was charged with tampering with physical evidence, Crocker said.

Eric Michael Kelso, who was a reserve officer, and his wife, Donna Reid Kelso, were charged with unlawful distribution of a controlled substance and conspiracy to unlawfully distribute a controlled substance, Crocker said. The distribution charges are not based on the distribution of anything within the evidence room, and they are “accused of distributing certain drugs to other individuals, including some of these other defendants,” he said.

All charges are felonies except for tampering with physical evidence, which is a misdemeanor, Crocker said. That charge alleges that the defendants “mishandled or removed evidence from the evidence room,” he said.

The employment status of the officers charged was not immediately clear, Crocker said.

The defendants surrendered on Wednesday and have since made bond, Cullman County Sheriff Matt Gentry said. Attorney information was not immediately available.

“There’s nothing more important to us in law enforcement than good, honest law enforcement. When we have those that do wrong, it hurts us all,” Gentry said during Wednesday’s briefing.

Among nearly a dozen points raised by the grand jury, it found that the department is a “particular and ongoing threat to public safety,” has a “rampant culture of corruption” and has “recently operated as more of a criminal enterprise than a law enforcement agency,” Crocker said.

Crocker said the grand jury recommended that the Hanceville Police Department “be immediately abolished” and that another law enforcement agency be tasked with protecting the citizens of Hanceville, which has a population of around 3,000.

Gentry said the sheriff’s office has not received a formal request to take over the Hanceville area in Cullman County, “but we are making preparations.”

“We will do whatever is necessary to protect our citizens in Hanceville,” he said.

Hanceville Mayor Jim Sawyer said he and the City Council are fully cooperating with the investigation.

“The Council will carefully consider all recommendations and act swiftly and decisively to address the problems within the Police Department,” he said in a statement on Wednesday. “Our citizens, industries, and businesses deserve a resolution, and we will pursue and implement the necessary corrective actions openly and aggressively. We deeply regret the negative impact this situation has had on our community and the hard-working employees of our city.”

“It is unfortunate that the actions of a few have tarnished our city’s good name,” he added.