By John Sharp, AL.com
Mobile and Montgomery mayors took action Friday to either discuss the removal of or press forward with the dismissal of their police chiefs.
Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson, in a statement Friday, said he will recommend the Mobile City Council vote on Tuesday to remove police Chief Paul Prine from his position. In Montgomery, Mayor Steven Reed publicly spoke on the same day about the resignation of police Chief Darryl Albert, effectively immediately.
Albert had been Montgomery’s police chief since March 2022. Prine has been Mobile’s police chief since October 2021. Both chiefs have lengthy careers in law enforcement — Albert, who has more than 30 years of experience in law enforcement, came to Montgomery after serving as commander of the Special Operations Division for the New Orleans Police Department; Prine worked his way up the ranks of the Mobile Police Department with 27 years at the agency.
Montgomery resignation
Albert issued his resignation amid scandal.
“Today, Darryl Albert informed me that he is resigning from his post as Chief of Police, and I have accepted his resignation,” Reed said Thursday in a news release. The mayor said during a news conference earlier on Friday that Albert was placed on suspension, in part, because of a case that involved sexual harassment allegations in the department, which he first learned about last month.
“Improving public safety is a priority for our city,” Reed said in a statement. “We are committed to confronting violent crime with community-based solutions.”
The department’s Deputy Chief John Hall is serving as the acting chief.
Mobile dispute
In Mobile, Prine has been on paid administrative leave more than a week. He cleared out his office earlier this month, and then began blasting the Stimpson administration through electronic media and during a public rally last Saturday, alleging improprieties within the city’s leadership. His concerns have mostly focused on intelligence-led policing and improper contracting.
“Over the last 10 days, we have all listened to allegations concerning city officials and their families, false accusations of impropriety and conspiracy theories,” Stimpson said in a statement. “I’ve watched the negative impact this has had on our community long enough. It is time for the situation to be resolved.”
Stimpson is sponsoring a resolution to support the dismissal of Prine as police chief. It takes five of seven votes on the Mobile City Council for it be approved.
“Despite every effort to avoid this path of submitting a resolution to the City Council, it seems to be the only option,” he said. “Under the Zoghby Act that established Mobile’s current city government, the police chief is one of several positions that can only be appointed or removed with a vote from five city council members. Despite taking this action, we are still hopeful to reach a more amicable resolution.”
Prine, in an interview with AL.com Thursday, said he has not been in contact with anyone from the Stimpson administration nor any member of the city council since he first raised questions over contracting and his inability to oversee the budgets and make financial decisions related to cyber-intelligence within the Mobile Police Department.
“These recent events have drastically impacted the morale of the Mobile Police Department and painted the City of Mobile in a negative light,” Stimpson said. “Our officers are among the best in the country. These men and women put their lives on the line to protect this community every day, and they deserve clear leadership without continued distractions. As mayor, my first responsibility is public safety, and it is a responsibility I take very seriously.”
Prine, in his comments to AL.com, said he has not spoken to anyone with the administration since April 9.
“I am not sure what the end game is,” he said on Thursday. “I have made it clear in the media that I’m only willing to go as far as the administration continues to push. It’s my reputation they have tarnished. There is still a way for me not to be the chief, but still resolve this. The administration in good faith has to start this conversation and, in order to do that, there has to be concession made to a whole lot of issues whether it’s operations to the department’s financial improprieties. The administration needs to look in and do the right thing.”
Prine said he is considering whether to forward his concerns to the Mobile County District Attorney’s Office to investigate.
Mobile investigations
The council will also vote on a contract to hire a special counsel that will assist with investigating Prine’s claims that include, among other things:
- Lack of the chief’s control over the Mobile Police Department’s intelligence division, also referred to as the Gulf Coast Technology Center that was established by current Chief of Staff James Barber, the city’s former police chief.
- Alleged failures of the ShotSpotter program and the commissioner of a third-party peer review and investigation by a company, 321z Insights LLC. The company was hired for $92,000 in November 2023. Prine has said that all but one invoice has been paid to the company for work that he claims was not properly detailed. Prine has said that a scope of work was supposed to be disclosed with each invoice, but he said the only description attached to them is listed as “consultancy.”
- Failure of the city to address or resolve written grievances filed by Prine. The city, through an information request, released a grievance Prine filed against Rob Lasky, the executive director of public safety, for allegedly making disparaging remarks about the chief in front of a subordinate.
- Collusion between city officials and/or third parties in an attempt to silence or remove Prine from his position.
- Improper attempts to control or run the Mobile Police Department by members of the Stimpson administration.
- Allegations that contracts had been improperly entered into without consent from the Mobile City Council.
“The Council is mindful that its investigatory powers should be reserved for only the most serious matters,” the resolution reads. The investigation is based on the “severity of the complaints” made by Prine, combined with the “sensitivity and importance of his position.”
“If the cause of and truth or falsity of these complaints are not fully investigated and addressed, the potential exists for malaise and loss of efficiency at the Mobile Police Department as well as the City Administration more broadly, and an erosion of and loss of public confidence in the City of Mobile,” the resolution continues.
Prine, in a comment late Friday, said it’s his hope the council will look at the allegations on both sides of the argument and “come to the conclusion that there needs to be real objective investigation to determine” if his grievances had merit.
In addition, he said he hopes the investigation will show “decades of best accounting practices not being adhered to with the Gulf Coast Technology Center, why the Chief of Police does not have access control or accountability to the tech center, and determine if organizations and/or vendors contracted with the city are appropriate.”
The council is also expected to receive a report into the policies and procedures on the use of force within the department. That report, conducted by former federal prosecutor Kenyen Brown, has been called a “sham” by Prine.
Stimpson authorized the report in November following a deadly pre-dawn raid — the fourth time in the past year in which a Black man died during an encounter with a Mobile police officer.
In Stimpson’s statement from last week, he said preliminary findings of Brown’s review uncovered disturbing instances of Prine’s authoritarian style, irreconcilable differences between Prine and other public safety officials, and a series of “frivolous” complaints, which Stimpson said were “demonstrably false.”
“I was shocked and disappointed to hear that at one open roll call in the first precinct, several officers who were present at the time confirmed that Prine said something to the effect of ‘Don’t pay attention to what I say in the media, f— the public,’” Stimpson said in his statement.
Stimpson said the information uncovered led him to make a change.
