Massive Jury Recommends Abolishing Alabama Police Division After Indicting 5 Contributors, Wife of an Officer
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An Alabama big jury has indicted five members of the Hanceville Police Division — along with the division’s chief — in connection with the loss of life of a dispatcher in August 2024.
The wife of 1 in all the officers was additionally indicted, and the giant jury suggested that the division be disbanded.
Christopher Michael Willingham, 49, was learned pointless in his office on August 23, 2024, The Cullman Tribune reported. He had last been viewed alive the day sooner than. An autopsy printed that Willingham died from a aggregate of “fentanyl, gabapentin, diasepam, amphetamine, carisoprodol, and methocarbamol.”
Officers Cody Alan Kelso, Jason Scott Wilbanks, William Andrew Shelnutt, and Eric Michael Kelso and Chief of Police Jason Shane Marlin had been indicted on a unfold of charges, along side Donna Reid Kelso, who is married to Eric Kelso, Cullman Cony Sheriff Matt Gentry and District Criminal legitimate Champ Crocker acknowledged at a information conference on Wednesday.
The giant jury charged Cody Kelso and Wilbanks with computer tampering, solicitation to commit a managed substance crime, use of office for interior most arrangement, and tampering with physical proof. Eric and Donna Kelso had been indicted on drug charges — unlawful distribution of a managed substance and conspiracy to distribute a managed substance.
Shelnut and Marlin had been both charged with tampering with physical proof, and the executive was additionally charged with failur to report an ethics crimes.
“With as of late’s indictments, these defendants receive themselves on the bogus cease of the rules they had been sworn to uphold,” court documents acknowledged. “Wearing a badge is a privilege and honor that most legislation enforcement officers rob critically. A badge is now now not a license to imperfect the administration of justice. These Hanceville Cops’ actions undermine the laborious work of the overall legislation enforcement neighborhood throughout our big recount.”
The giant jury made a amount of solutions, along with suspended your whole indicted officers from legislation enforcement and staunch away abolishing the metropolis’s police division and handing over legislation enforcement to 1 more native or recount company.
“Essentially based exclusively exclusively upon the investigation by Issue Bureau of Investigation, we receive that the Hanceville Police Division is a explicit and ongoing threat to public security,” the giant jury acknowledged. ‘There would possibly be a rampart culture of corruption within the Hanceville PD which has lately operated as extra of a criminal project than a legislation enforcement company.”
The giant jury acknowledged the division “abused public belief by its failure of oversight, lack of leadership and negligent training and hiring.” It additional acknowledged the members of the giant jury had “zero self assurance” within the division’s ability to love a receive penitentiary for inmates or personnel after a tour of the flexibility.
“The loss of life of outdated Hanceville dispatcher Chris Willingham is the state outcomes of Hanceville Police Division’s negligence, lack of course of, overall incompetence, and brush apart for human life,” the giant jury acknowledged.
After the guidelines conference, Hanceville Mayor Jim Sawyer launched an announcement that did now not address any of the giant jury’s feedback, diversified than to utter the metropolis council “will fastidiously bear in ideas all solutions and act without warning and decisively to handle the complications throughout the Police Division.”
Sawyer did utter that he agreed with the district lawyer than an audit of the proof room was warranted. He did now not utter if the indicted police officers had been quiet employed by the metropolis.
The indicted officers and main other had been all launched on bonds starting from $15,000 to $60,000, in response to WAFF.
Hanceville is a diminutive metropolis in Cullman County between Birmingham and Huntsville in north Alabama.
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[Featured image: Top, Jason Shane Marlin, Donna Reid Kelso, and Jason Scott Wilbanks. Bottom, Eric Michael Kelso, William Andrew Shelnutt, and Cody Alan Kelso. All photos Cullman County Sheriff’s Office]
