By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on October 2, 2024
An Editorial Opinion
Amid a breakdown in public safety in his city, Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Randall Woodfin -- once again -- seems incapable of telling the truth about the strength and capabilities of the Birmingham police department.
Yesterday, Woodfin misled the public, again, on the number of sworn officers required to fully staff his police department. Woodfin claims that 851 officers are required to provide adequate police protection in Birmingham. Woodfin also claims the city has 377 officers available for patrol. Finally, Woodfin claims the city is only shortstaffed by 63 patrol officers.
Of course, Woodfin’s claims are flatly contradicted by the police department’s website, as well as media interviews given by two of the city's police chiefs and other city officials.
Here is the police department's website (as of May 2024). It specifies the number of sworn police officers (912) and support staff (325) required to adequately police the 151 square miles of Birmingham's territorial limits.
According to inside sources, the city employs about 400 sworn officers today. As such, the department is understaffed by 512 sworn police officers.
Yesterday, Woodfin claimed that the department is understaffed by only 63 officers is disingenuous. Some people would call this statement grossly misleading or an outright lie.
On June 28, 2018, Birmingham Police Chief Patrick Smith said this about the number of officers needed:
“There are usually over 900 (officers) but those numbers need to be higher because we have to have officers to address the basic services of the 911 calls for service, in addition to those to conduct very strong investigations to make sure the criminal justice system has the opportunity to hold people accountable.”
On September 6, 2022, new Police Chief Scott Thurmond declared that his department needed about 900 sworn officers to be fully staffed. At the time, the city only budgeted for 738 sworn officers.
The next day, Chief Thurmond confirmed to the Birmingham Times that the number of sworn officers needed to fully staff the police department was 900.
On May 16, 2024, City Council President Darrell O'Quinn reported that the police department, which only had 725 sworn police officers positions funded in the new city budget, had about 296 vacancies.
On May 22, 2024, Fraternal Order of Police Vice President Lawrence Billups siad the number of sworn officers needed for ful is staffing was closer to 900 or 1,000. Billups's statement aligns with the number quoted by Police Chiefs Smith and Thurmond.
“There’s a lot of numbers out there that are just false,” Woodfin told the Birmingham City Council on Tuesday. Woodfin is hiring a PR firm to quash what he says is false information about the number of sworn officers needed to provide public safety in Birmingham.
Either Chief Patrick Smith, Chief Scott Thurmond, the Birmingham Times (which receives city funding), Darrell O’Quinn, Lawrence Billups, and the police department's website (in May 2024) are all lying about the police department staffing numbers, or Woodfin is.
Who do you believe? The Birmingham mayor who went to Washington and talked to Congress about getting high on marijuana and engaging in kumbaya sessions as an approach to solving the city's skyrocketing homicides, or the police department's website and litany of city officials who have repeatedly warned the public that Birmingham needs 900 or more sworn police officers?
As for me, when people show me who they are, I believe them. When they repeatedly lie to me, I distance myself from them.
Regardless of who you believe, one critical fact is undisputed -- Birmingham is the third most dangerous city in the U.S. in 2024, according to Forbes Magazine.
I am passionate when it comes to fighting violent street crime. This is NOT a black or white problem. Also, violent criminals do not care whether their victims are Democrats or Republicans.
Fighting violent crime is hard work. Working together, we can bring violent crime under control. Here is a real-world example of how fighting violent crime works:
From 1985 to 1998, I worked as the Mayor’s Office liaison to the Birmingham police department and a multitude of interagency law enforcement task forces. On October 15, 1994, five innocent victims – Pamela Dodd (37), Eddie “Lester” Dodd (38), Florence Elliot (45), William Nelson (52), and James Watkins (52 and not related to me) -- were robbed and murdered,…
Under Birmingham's Mayor-Council Act, the city official with the duty and responsibility to enforce all laws is Mayor Randall Woodfin. The City Council's duty and responsibility is to fund the 912 sworn police officer positions needed to provide adequate police protection to city residents. Obviously, both set of officials are failing to do their jobs. As a result, homicides in Birmingham are skyrocketing.