By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on October 17, 2024
An Editorial Opinion
In the aftermath of the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt on Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris administration’s bumbling U.S. Secret Service Agency has found the manpower to prop up disgraced Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Randall Woodfin.
Earlier this week, Woodfin announced that Patrick M. Davis, who serves as the Special Agent in Charge (SAIC) of the Birmingham Field Office, has the time, energy, and resources to serve on Woodfin's new crime commission. The commission's creation was a "cover-your-ass" move by Woodfin, who is experiencing plenty of political heat from his failure to curb the skyrocketing gun-related homicides and mass shootings in Birmingham.
In 2018, Mayor Woodfin, who pals around with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, proclaimed Birmingham as a “Welcoming City” to the illegal immigrants and international criminal gangs who flocked to Birmingham after Wooodfin made his proclamation.
In an interview with National Public Radio, Woodfin bragged that:
"[W]e’re not going to use our police to do anything around what I call rounding up people. We just don’t believe in that. I don’t believe in that as mayor. I’ve had a clear, direct conversation with my police chief. I’ve had a clear and direct conversation with my chief of our city jail. We’re not in that business."
Woodfin also said Birmingham police would NEVER ask anyone about his/her immigration status.
Woodfin also confirmed that Birmingham would NOT cooperate with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) in rounding up and deporting illegal immigrants.
Woodfin's words were music to the ears of violent Venezuelan and Columbian criminal gangs whose members have been slipping cross America's southern border in growing numbers since 2018 and making their way to Birmingham.
Today, gang warfare in Birmingham has turned city streets into rivers of bloods. The city has emerged as the new "Murder Capital of the U.S."
Against the backdrop of Trump’s near-death experience and the Secret Service’s announced manpower shortage, somebody in Washington authorized Patrick Davis to prop up Randall Woodfin -- the mayor who vowed that Birmingham would not cooperate with the federal roundup and deportation of illegal immigrants and gang members in his city.
We understand Mayor Woodfin’s political agenda. After all, he systematically defunded his police department and reduced the number its sworn officers from 912 in 2017 to about 400 today. Woodfin is weak and soft on violent crime.
We do not, however, understand the U.S. Secret Service Agency’s agenda in Birmingham. The agency's political alliance with Woodfin raises serious questions. For example:
Is the Secret Service also aligned with Mayor Woodfin in blocking ICE’s roundup of illegal immigrants and international criminal gang members living in Woodfin's proclaimed "Welcoming City"?
Why does the Secret Service have the manpower to breathe life into Woodfin’s naïve and dangerous “Welcoming City” agenda, but not the manpower required to fully protect the life of Donald Trump?
Who authorized Patrick Davis to sit as a member of Woodfin's committee?
The U.S. Congress needs to be asking these hard questions to subpoenaed witnesses under oath.
I received a call today to inform me that Black funeral home businesses in Birmingham are booming with business. The surge in homicides in the city is driving a surge in funerals. Nearly all of the homicide victims are Black. Sales of caskets, burial plots, floral arrangements, printed funeral programs, and headstones are up. It is the only economic boom Black businesses have experienced in Birmingham under Mayor Woodfin's leadership. We will investigate this report.
Is this why the Secret Service is propping up Mayor Randall Woodfin?