UPDATE: Mobile City Council votes to investigate former police chief’s allegations
UPDATE (5:30 p.m.): The Mobile City Council on Tuesday unanimously voted to terminate Police Chief Paul Prine.
UPDATE: 2 people shot Tuesday in Mobile
A separate item, to investigate the validity of Prine’s allegations against the city, passed with a 6-1 vote.
Prine has alleged that the city has made improper attempts to control or run the police department and that the city didn’t address his grievances.
The resolution that laid out the terms of the investigation was sponsored by District 1 Councilman Cory Penn and District 2 Councilman William Carroll.
“If we don’t pass this today, I’m not going to support other stuff on this agenda,” Carroll said.
Carroll said the investigation will be headed by a “third-party” investigator.
“We are council members. None of us are lawyers on the council,” Carroll said. “A lot of these issues may have legal parameters that we don’t understand that needs an attorney with that specialty to decipher what’s actually going on.”
The resolution, as it was originally written, would have required the findings of the investigation to be published within 90 days.
District 4 Councilman Ben Reynolds offered an amendment that would lessen the timeframe to 30 days. Carroll and Reynolds eventually met in the middle, requiring that the findings be released within 45 days.
“30 days is nowhere close to enough time to get anything done,” Carroll said. “I can’t even get that kind of stuff done in my own office in 30 days.”
Although the council voted to move forward with the investigation, they don’t know the scope of what they want investigated or who they want as a third-party investigator.
Carroll said he hopes those two questions will be answered during a Committee Meeting of the Whole in the next few weeks.
“If we do sweep this under the rug and we find out this stuff is true, then we’re just as complacent as everybody else,” Carroll said. “Whoever is the third party shouldn’t have a tie to the city administration or to the council. They should be able to do that investigation unfettered and untethered.”
District 5 Councilman Joel Daves was the only council member opposed to the investigation.
You can view the resolution below.
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MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG) — Mobile Police Chief Paul Prine has been fired after a city council vote at their meeting Tuesday.
The council voted 7-0 to terminate Prine.
Prine was placed on administrative leave on April 9 after a third-party review report of the MPD was done by former U.S. Attorney Kenyen Brown.
The redacted report was released to the public last Tuesday and discussed in a city council meeting, but the matter was tabled until today.
Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson said he put Prine on administrative leave due to Prine’s alleged deteriorating relationship with his bosses.
“It is definitely borderline, if not outright, direct insubordination,” Stimpson said.
Prine has asserted that the city made improper attempts to control or run the police department and did not address his grievances.
This is a developing story. News 5 will update this article as more information becomes available.
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