An Alabama city suspended its entire police department Thursday after most of its officers were indicted on corruption charges brought to light in part by the overdose death of a dispatcher.
The move came a day after a grand jury indicted five Hanceville Police Department officers, including the chief, and one of their spouses, citing a “rampant culture of corruption” and recommending that the entire force be abolished.
Jim Sawyer, mayor of the 3,200-population city about 45 miles north of Birmingham, temporarily handed law enforcement duties over to the Cullman County Sheriff’s Office, placing all department employees on leave as of 5 p.m. Thursday.
Chief Jason Marlin, 51, was charged with two counts of failure to report ethics crime and tampering with evidence, reported WBRC.
Charges against Cody Alan Kelso, 33; Jason Scott Wilbanks, 37; William Andrew Shellnutt, 39, and Eric Michael Kelso, 44, included evidence tampering, distribution of controlled substances, and a variety of other felonies. Kelso’s wife, 63-year-old Donna Reid Kelso, faced similar charges.
Especially concerning was the “unfettered access” people had to the department’s evidence room, Cullman District Attorney Champ Crocker said in a news conference Wednesday, illustrating his point with photos of a hole in the wall and a green broomstick that people would use to force the door open.
Such access may well have led to the death of 49-year-old dispatcher Christopher Michael Willingham, who had been found in his office on Aug. 23, 2024. The Cullman County Coroner’s Office ruled his death accidental, caused by a toxic combination of fentanyl, gabapentin, diazepam, amphetamine, carisoprodol and methocarbamol, according to WBRC.
The grand jury called his death a “direct result of Hanceville Police Department’s negligence, lack of procedure, general incompetence, and disregard of human life.”
“With these indictments, these officers find themselves on the opposite end of the laws they were sworn to uphold,” Crocker said Wednesday in announcing the indictments, calling it “a sad day for law enforcement, but at the same time it is a good day for the rule of law.”