Crime, public safety at forefront of Alabama mayors' meeting in Tuscaloosa

This past weekend saw the mayors of Alabama’s 10 largest cities come to Tuscaloosa to discuss the common issues that face each of their communities.

While the topics ranged from economic development, leveraging federal aid dollars to maximize their potential benefits and this summer’s upcoming World Games coming to the Birmingham metro area, a key issue that each mayor addressed was crime.

“it’s very difficult, almost impossible, for the mayors to get together and we not talk about the escalating crime that we’re seeing in our cities and across the state and moving across the nation, what is the cause of that and what we’re doing about it,” said Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson, who serves as chairman of the Top 10 Mayors group.

Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox said each member – including Stimpson, himself and the mayors of Auburn, Huntsville, Decatur, Hoover, Madison, Montgomery, Dothan and Birmingham – was pleased with the Alabama Legislature’s passage of Aniah’s Law, a constitutional amendment that now will be on the general election ballot in November for final approval by the voters.

The law is named for Aniah Blanchard, a Southern Union State Community College student who was kidnapped from an Auburn gas station in October 2019.

Her body was found a month later in Macon County a month later and prosecutors ultimately charged a man who, at the time of Blanchard's disappearance, was free on $295,000 bail stemming from charges that he had held two men at gunpoint, one of whom was near death after a beating.

Crime news: Authorities investigated 22 homicide cases in Tuscaloosa County in 2021

If adopted by the voters, the Aniah’s Law amendment will give judges in Alabama the authority to withhold bail from offenders who, as Maddox explained, “could potentially create more violence moving forward.”

“Right now, our judges do not have that within their wheelhouses,” Maddox said, “so to be able to identify a violent offender and to be able to, hopefully, keep that person behind bars while the case is being adjudicated will make our community safer.”

While the mayors were thankful for the Alabama Legislature’s support of Aniah’s Law, some were less than appreciative of the new bill that would allow Alabama residents to carry concealed weapons without a permit.

Signed into law earlier this month by Gov. Kay Ivey, the bill was opposed by police and sheriff’s association members across the state.

While gun rights proponents argued that the permit system did not work and constituted an unconstitutional infringement on the rights of individuals to own weapons, law enforcement advocates said the permits were a useful tool for detaining individuals without a permit who may have committed crimes, and for denying firearms to individuals who should not have them.

The Sheriffs Association alone said sheriff’s departments across Alabama had denied 6,000 permits last year.

Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed said the new permit-less carry law will make it harder for mayors across Alabama to keep their communities safer.

“The proliferation of handguns in this environment is problematic,” Reed said. “The Legislature’s reckless approach to passing the permit-less carry bill, in my opinion, was anti-law enforcement. It did not help us in terms of what we’re trying to do both in working with our police department as well as working with our sheriff’s department.”

Rather than listen to special interest groups, Reed suggested state lawmakers to visit with the mayors and communities they represent. Then, he said, they could learn first-hand the challenges facing municipal elected leaders and help work toward reducing crime rather than exacerbating it.

“Legislators have the luxury of passing bills that they don’t have to be held responsible for,” Reed said. “Mayors are often then tasked to deal with cleaning up the mess. And that’s what what has happened.”

“I would challenge those that are making the laws to talk to the mayors that are in their districts about how they feel about it. Right now, I don’t think that we have that type of collaboration.”

Reach Jason Morton at jason.morton@tuscaloosanews.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Alabama mayors' meeting focuses on Aniah's Law, crime, public safety