Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said there will be no defunding of Birmingham police, but there will be increased accountability and focus on training officers in the city.

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“There is a conversation nationally about defunding police and yes I’ve heard locally from some people about it, but that is not at the same volume as our citizens saying ‘we want more police presence, we want more police,’’' Woodfin said.

“As much as there is a national conversation going on about defunding the police, on the ground the majority of voices I hear when I’m in the neighborhoods, when I’m speaking to everyday citizens, is the actual opposite.”

The mayor said roughly 90 percent of the police department’s $92 million budget goes toward salaries. “Unless you want me to fire police officers, we won’t be defunding police,’' he said. “What everyone is saying is we want more accountability, more transparency in our police department. We want to make sure officers are doing the right thing.”

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The task force members are: Jaselle Houghtlin, a recent UAB graduate and co-founder of the advocacy group, Listen; Cara McClure, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Birmingham; Victor Revill, a Birmingham attorney with Revill Law Firm; Ed Watkins, a former Birmingham police detective and Joyce Vance, former U.S. Attorney of the Northern District of Alabama. Woodfin and Williams serve as co-chairs.

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Some of the key initiatives identified by Mayor Woodfin for implementation include:

A citizens’ advisory board on public safety in the first quarter of 2021
Adopting and expanding domestic violence and sexual assault training and procedures in the first quarter of 2021
Continuing to move forward with a planned initiative to share BPD policies online
Hosting quarterly advocate roundtables, starting in the first quarter of 2021

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So far in Birmingham in 2020, there have been 11 domestic-related homicides. Arrests have been made in eight of those.

Starting Friday, Dec. 18, social workers will partner with officers from the West Precinct to address misdemeanor domestic violence incidents.

The Emergency Advocacy Team pilot program, or PEAT for short, is a pilot program that will work to break the cycle of domestic violence. A review of aggravated revealed that 27 percent of aggravated assaults in the city involve domestic violence.

Assistant Chief Darnell Davenport said they’ve discovered many repeat incidents involving the same victims. Some, he said, have called police more than 25 times over the past 365 days to report that they are a victim.

Davenport said they’ve found that at the time of the incident, most victims are open to intervention services. Having a social worker there will expedite the process.

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Both Woodfin and Williams said many of the policies and procedures that the public says they want already exist in the department, but they are not publicized or easily found,

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“From a policy and procedures standpoint, one of the first things we should do is highlight where an everyday average citizen can go to a website and know what those policies and procedures are. I think the big thing that jumped out is knowing that all of these accountability measures already exist, but people don’t know they exist and it’s important for the police department to overshare that information. "

https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2020/12/randall-woodfin-no-defunding-birmingham-police-but-more-accountability-training-coming.html

LOL So they are going to have social workers on call for night shift when most DV's happen? LOL, that will last all of about a week.

I guess the first 24 times cops answered a DV call for the same players and they still don't get out, now this will change. LOL

The issue is cops are not social workers. We don't have the time nor resources to invest hours and days in their personal lives. As evidenced by their own quoted stats, these people don't want long term solutions to their DV issue.

They wanted it resolved for the 15-30 minutes an officer is on a scene. Then it's back to sucking and fucking again, till the next time. They know about the possible help out there, they don't want it. Cops make arrests and/or file a report and on to the next call.