Mobile mayor apologizes to police department amid holes in Kenyen Brown report

MOBILE, Ala. ( WKRG ) — Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson used a private meeting at Mobile Police Headquarters to apologize to several officers and members of the command staff.

The apology comes three weeks after former U.S. Attorney Kenyen Brown released a third-party report of the Mobile Police Department’s policies and procedures. The report has since been proven to have holes in it.

When News 5 asked Stimpson if he planned to apologize to the public, the tone wasn’t the same.

“I don’t know that I need to apologize to the public,” Stimpson said.

The report focused on six recent, violent encounters with the police department. Four of those encounters were deadly.

Stimpson admitted that some of the “facts” in Brown’s report might not be facts at all. However, Stimpson stood behind his decision to seek a third-party review.

“My heart has not changed, OK? It has given them a black eye, but that was not the intention of this,” Stimpson said. “If I had that forward-facing rearview mirror, would we have done just like we’ve done it? Absolutely not.”

Although Stimpson and other local law enforcement officials discovered holes in Brown’s report, that didn’t stop the city from spending $297,791.12 on the legal services that went into that report. That amount was released publicly on Wednesday.

“Like you, I’m shocked at how much it costs,” Stimpson said. “I’m not going to say I have regrets but let’s say there’s a life lesson involved in this. You certainly don’t want to repeat this kind of situation.”

The city said the money hasn’t been paid in full yet, and it was not approved by the Mobile City Council.

Stimpson alluded to the Zoghby Act, a piece of mid-1980s legislation that founded Mobile’s current form of government, which he said allows city administration to seek legal counsel through the city attorney without the approval of the city council.

“We did this and made the decision to hire Kenyen Brown; we didn’t realize that it would be this much money,” Stimpson said. “But we also know that the city council knew that we were doing it.”

The money, according to Stimpson, will come out of the city’s legal budget.

Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch, whose office was not the subject of Brown’s investigation, questioned Brown’s qualifications to conduct the review. Burch said Brown has no prior law enforcement experience.

“In the end, it’s a lot of words that really say nothing,” Burch said. “I challenge him to go through a police academy someday if he wants to make these kinds of reports.”

Meanwhile, Stimpson continued to argue that Brown’s experience with the United States Department of Justice qualifies him for the job of reviewing law enforcement policy.

Of the six cases Brown reviewed, one of them involved a viral video of a 16-year-old girl being body slammed by a Mobile Police Officer outside Accel Academy. Brown said a school administrator pulled the girl’s hair leading up to the incident, which could be considered a third-degree assault.

Accel Academy asked Burch to investigate the allegations Brown made against the faculty member. Burch said the allegations were completely false based on surveillance footage he reviewed.

“It’s just not true,” Burch said. “You should watch it more than once. I probably watched the thing a dozen times.”

Burch went even further, saying that while he was only tasked to look into the Accel Academy case, he couldn’t help but notice discrepancies riddled throughout the rest of the report.

“I quoted him several times saying [deadly encounters] could have been avoided by ways such as talking to neighbors prior to executing a search warrant on a drug house. I mean, that is the dumbest thing I’ve heard somebody say,” Burch said. “Several of those individual suggestions or ways that could have been done differently were absolutely stupid.”

WKRG News 5 reached out to Kenyen Brown for a response but was sent to voicemail.

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