‘Criminal enterprise’: Grand Jury calls for disbanding police force as 5 officers charged

A small Alabama police force operated “as more of a criminal enterprise than a law enforcement agency,” according to an 18-member grand jury that is now calling for the Hanceville Police Department to be abolished, according to The New York Times.

The police department, which serves some 3,000 residents in a city about 45 miles north of Birmingham, had just eight officers on the payroll as of last August when Jason Marlin was sworn in as chief, according to the report.

Now, Marlin and four officers have been indicted on felony and misdemeanor charges as part of an extensive corruption investigation, leaving the city down to a police force of just three as more details of the massive corruption inside the tiny department emerge.

“With these indictments, these officers find themselves on the opposite end of the laws they were sworn to uphold,” Cullman County District Attorney Champ Crocker said at a Wednesday news conference. “Wearing a badge is a privilege and an honor, and that most law enforcement officers take seriously. A badge is not a license to corrupt the administration of justice.”

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Additional details about the indictments, which also included the wife of one of the officers involved, were revealed in court documents examined by the Times. They include “the mishandling of evidence, use of performance-enhancing drugs and unauthorized access to a law enforcement database.”

“The specific charges, which were filed on Friday in Cullman County Circuit Court, included computer tampering, use of office for personal gain, unlawful distribution of a controlled substance, evidence tampering and failure to notify the state about ethics violations,” the Times reported.

The district attorney told reporters during his news conference that officers had free reign of the police evidence room through a gap in the wall and with the use of a broomstick they used to pry open a door, the Times stated. Crocker added that after the grand jury visited the Hanceville jail last week, it left with “zero confidence” in the police department’s ability to keep up with basic health and safety standards, the publication reported.

All five officers have since been released on bond following their arrests.