Aug. 19 (UPI) — The members of an Alabama metropolis council voted Thursday to “quickly” disband its three-officer police division, which it could not hearth after racist texts from one of many officers had been revealed.
The Vincent Metropolis Council voted unanimously on an ordinance that might quickly abolish the division, which can take impact subsequent week, The Birmingham News reported.
Vincent is a small metropolis of about 2,000 folks positioned round 35 miles southeast of Birmingham.
The choice got here after one of many officers allegedly despatched a textual content message with racist language and a joke involving slavery and pregnant girls to a colleague in June. The officer has not been recognized.
Vincent has been functioning with none lively cops since an emergency metropolis council assembly was held earlier this month and metropolis leaders voted to droop its police chief and assistant police chief with pay, CNN reported.
The third officer resigned that night and the Shelby County Sheriff’s Workplace has been offering emergency regulation enforcement response providers to the town since then.
The Vincent Metropolis Council had additionally sought to terminate the officers that day however had been advised they might not by the town’s lawyer Invoice Justice due to a coverage that requires two written complaints and a verbal warning earlier than an worker will be fired.
Mayor James Latimer was requested by a member of the general public throughout a public remark portion earlier than the vote whether or not the cops may return to the town if the police division is ever recreated.
“A part of disbanding the police division solves that downside,” Latimer responded.
Latimer responded within the affirmative when requested by AL.com if disbanding the police division was the one option to take away the allegedly problematic cops.
“We will convey the police division again; we will go together with Shelby County for a 12 months after which convey the police division again as soon as we have had time to interview folks to seek out the suitable folks to construct positions,” Latimore mentioned.
Corey Abrams, a member of the town council, motioned earlier than the vote so as to add the phrase “quickly” to the ordinance to provide the town time to reconstruct its personnel insurance policies and construct a brand new police division.