Pepper's email on police disciplinary actions in Perkins shooting stumps council peers

Dec. 1—Some Decatur city councilmen were left scratching their heads after Councilman Hunter Pepper sent an email late Wednesday to the mayor, council and apparently to the entire Police Department, wherein he announced his support of police and claimed three of the four officers involved in the fatal police shooting of Steve Perkins received confirmation of their impending termination, while the fourth will receive an unpaid suspension.

"That was information that has not been given to the council," said Council President Jacob Ladner on Thursday. "I guess (Pepper) doesn't understand the process, but the mayor hasn't even heard the case yet. He has obviously not been able to make a decision.

"I don't think it's becoming of a public official to put something out like that that's not factual. It was sent to the entire council, the mayor and what appeared to be the entire Police Department."

Councilman Kyle Pike said the revelations in Pepper's email were news to him, and Councilman Carlton McMasters said he doesn't know how Pepper would know that information.

Pepper on Thursday would not identify a source.

"I cannot elaborate on where the information came from, but I can tell you that the attorney out of Huntsville (Robert Lockwood) sent in recommendations, and then the officers received letters of those recommendations from the mayor's office," he said.

"So, that is, in my opinion, with the intent of what the mayor plans to do, which is obviously what was sent around in those letters."

Pepper added that he couldn't recall if the claimed recommendations from Lockwood came before or after the completion of the predetermination hearings held by police Chief Todd Pinion on Nov. 9.

McMasters admitted that he's heard rumors of all kinds related to the investigation but said that he won't comment on rumors.

"He's presenting a lot of rumors as fact," McMasters said of Pepper. "The thing that frustrates me the most is that Hunter is acting as if he's been given information that nobody else has. And to my knowledge, that has not occurred. It has gone from the Police Department to the Legal Department to the mayor's office, and last time I checked, there has been no hearing."

Pike called Pepper's claims pure speculation.

"The mayor has not made a decision," he said. "He will, and he's said that he will make those findings public. I expect we will hold him to that and that he will go through with that."

In a statement Thursday, Mayor Tab Bowling said he will make judgments following the disciplinary hearings the week of Dec. 4, and that any suggestion that he has already made decisions is false.

"Councilman Pepper is certainly free to voice his own opinions and make suggestions as to how he would prefer the City of Decatur proceed related to the policy investigation into the death of Mr. Perkins," he said. "However, the City of Decatur will continue to follow the law."

Pepper's email expresses displeasure with the purported disciplinary punishments and calls the mayor's decision, which Pepper claims was influenced by immense public pressure, unjust and unfair.

Pepper also implies that officers largely followed policies and procedures the night Perkins was killed by citing a small portion of the Decatur Police Department's written directive manual guiding police responses.

"To my knowledge, the officers involved, to my understanding, violated an irrelevant policy to the situation at hand," Pepper said on Thursday. He said he could not specify which policy he referred to.

Pepper's email also accused the city of Decatur of jumping to conclusions by moving forward with disciplinary proceedings ahead of completion of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency's criminal investigation.

"To those who have stated they support termination, I hope each of you make zero mistakes at your place of work," the email reads.

McMasters said that, traditionally, disciplinary proceedings would come after a criminal investigation, but that the city isn't in a traditional situation.

"It's my opinion we don't have to wait on the criminal side to determine if policy or procedure was broken, and according to the statement from Chief Pinion, he feels it was," McMasters said.

Ladner said disciplinary proceedings related to breaking policies and procedures have nothing to do with the criminal investigation.

"They're really just completely separate, so I do think that the timing was appropriate as far as not waiting for the ALEA investigation to come back, and I hope we did the internal (investigation) as fast and as thorough as we could," he said.

Rodney Gordon, president of the Morgan County chapter of the NAACP, expressed concern that Pepper's leaked email could delay or disrupt the disciplinary proceedings.

"He's hindering an investigation," Gordon said. "For him to make a statement like that publicly — that's misconduct."

McMasters said he didn't think the email would affect the upcoming hearings, but that he wasn't sure because the council is not privy to the inner workings of personnel issues.

Pike said, "I'm not sure if it could or if it does (affect the hearings). I would hope that it does not; obviously you don't want to se this process delayed any longer."

In the email's closing, Pepper said "this event" has torn the city to pieces and it breaks his heart.

"I'm now coming to all of you to tell you I support the police in this matter and do not support termination of any involved," he wrote. "... I hope all of you will stand up and do the right thing as people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

Perkins was shot and killed by a Decatur police officer when police accompanied a repossession agent to Perkins' home shortly before 2 a.m. on Sept. 29.

Pike said he couldn't speak to Pepper's motives for sending the email or why Pepper thought it was appropriate to do so.

"Before I opened the letter, I read his email and then looked to see who it was sent to," he said. "I was a little caught off guard that it was sent to the mayor, the council and the Police Department. It's not something that I would have done."

McMasters also said he wouldn't have done it and said he wasn't surprised that the email was leaked.

Pepper said he hopes his email has a positive impact.

"I just hope that it will open minds into what is right and that there isn't just a standard opinion on something that they've seen and don't have all the details of," he said Thursday.

— david.gambino@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2438. @DD_DavidGambino