Questions, outrage left after ‘lifelong felon’ accused of shooting 2 Alabama deputies: ‘The justice system failed’

Deputy Brad Johnson's honor walk / Contributed

Law enforcement officers from around the state, as well as family and friends, gathered at Legacy of Hope organ center as Bibb County Deputy Brad Johnson’s body was being moved from UAB Hospital to the center for organ harvesting. (Carol Robinson)

Bibb County deputy Brad Johnson. (contributed)

Brad Johnson (contributed)

Law enforcement officer from around the state, as well as family and friends, gathered at Legacy of Hope organ center as Bibb County Deputy Brad Johnson’s body was being moved from UAB Hospital to the center for organ harvesting. (Carol Robinson)

Law enforcement officer from around the state, as well as family and friends, gathered at Legacy of Hope organ center as Bibb County Deputy Brad Johnson’s body was being moved from UAB Hospital to the center for organ harvesting. (Carol Robinson)

Law enforcement officers from around the state, as well as family and friends, gathered at Legacy of Hope organ center as Bibb County Deputy Brad Johnson’s body was being moved from UAB Hospital to the center for organ harvesting. (Carol Robinson)

Austin Patrick Hall (Shelby County Jail)

Bibb County Deputy Christ Poole is recovering after he was shot June 29, 2022. (Contributed)

Law enforcement officers, including Alabama State Troopers, Birmingham police, Chilton County deputies and Shelby County deputies arrive at UAB Hospital, where two Bibb County sheriff's deputies were taken after being shot.

A prayer vigil is held Wednesday at the Bibb County courthouse for the two sheriff's deputies who were shot.

Austin Patrick Hall is wanted in the shooting of two Bibb County sheriff's deputies on June 29, 2022. (ALEA)

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Prosecutors from two Alabama counties on Friday are expected to move to revoke the bond of Austin Patrick Hall, a convicted felon being held in connection with the shootings of two Bibb County sheriff’s deputies.

The motions were made in Calhoun County and Chilton County. A Calhoun County judge already has granted that request.

The 26-year-old Hall has been arrested on at least 46 criminal charges since he was 17.

He was captured Thursday morning in Bibb County not far from where authorities say he shot deputies Brad Johnson and Chris Poole.

Poole has been released from the hospital. Johnson was officially pronounced dead at 3:18 p.m. Thursday and donated his organs.

Austin Patrick Hall (Shelby County Jail)

Hall is being held in the Shelby County Jail and will be arraigned Friday morning in Bibb County on charges of capital murder and attempted murder in the shootings of Johnson and Poole.

News of Hall’s lengthy rap sheet, first reported Wednesday by AL.com, has outraged law enforcement leaders and the community as a whole.

“My Office is closely scrutinizing the policies that allowed for a violent offender, like Hall, to walk free,” said Attorney General Steve Marshall.

“The justice system failed these officers and I will do everything in my power to ensure that doesn’t happen again.”

“When is enough, enough?” said Oxford Police Chief Bill Partridge, who is often outspoken about suspects arrested after being returned to the streets.

“How many citizens and law enforcement officers must be injured or killed by career felons before it stops.”

“I’m sick of hearing that prisons are overcrowded,’’ Partridge said. “Start building. It’s past time criminals are held accountable.”

“This individual should not have been out in 2019 when we dealt with him,’’ he said. “And he should not have been out yesterday.”

In October 2019, Hall escaped from the Camden Work Release Center.

He had started a nearly 10-year sentence the previous year after being found guilty of second-degree theft of property.

The Alabama Department of Corrections on Thursday declined to immediately comment on whether Hall had completed his sentence and if so, when that sentence was complete.

Hall was on the run for more than a month when he was taken into custody following a police chase that ended in Georgia.

In that case, Oxford police officers tried to stop Hall when they spotted a vehicle that had been reported stolen out Pelham.

Police tried to pull over the vehicle but the driver – Hall – refused to stop and a chase ensued eastbound on Interstate 20.

The pursuit ended when Georgia State Patrol “pitted” the suspect at mile marker 5. Hall’s vehicle overturned but he was not injured.

At the time of his capture, Hall also had outstanding warrants in Chilton County for domestic violence.

While he was being held in the Calhoun County Jail in 2020 after his recapture, court records show, authorities say Hall attack an officer and tried to choke him.

He was charged with second-degree assault.

Hall was indicted in Calhoun County in May on 10 charges of second-degree receiving stolen property, reckless endangerment, second-degree assault, certain persons prohibited from carrying a firearm, drug possession, resisting arrest, attempting to elude and third-degree burglary.

Those indictments stem from the 2019 incidents in Calhoun County.

His other arrests took place in Chilton, Coosa and Tuscaloosa counties.

Hall in April was booked into the Chilton County Jail in connection with a 2019 third-degree burglary. He was released April 20, 2022, after posting $22,500 bond, court records show.

Centreville Mayor Mike Oakley said he and the community are concerned about why Hall, who has been arrested on at least 46 criminal charges since he was 17, was out of jail.

“How was this lifelong felon allowed to walk and something like this happen,’’ the mayor said.

“How can we better identify people with habitual problems so that it would not come to something like this? Maybe we need to do a better job of identifying people whose lives could lead to this.”

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