Mobile Police Chief Paul Prine was placed on administrative leave this week. City leadership said it was necessary, Prine very publicly disagreed, then on Thursday, Mayor Sandy Stimpson said the chief had gone “AWOL” on city attorneys regarding his inevitable ouster — as well as the department itself.
In an interview on Wednesday, Prine spoke about the situation and blamed the Mayor’s office for not reaching an amicable solution regarding his departure from the department.
“I’m not going to sell out to the system on threats,” Prine said. “My hands are clean. I’m not saying anybody’s hands are dirty, but I’ve done everything in an ethical way. I’m not a guy who’s going to be pushed into a corner on threats. That’s why we were unable to come to terms.”
“I don’t mind parting ways with the administration, but not this way.”
He also said that future course of the issue, will ultimately be decided by Mayor Sandy Stimpson and his office.
“It is totally contingent on what the administration says,” said Prine. “They can spin the truth or fabricate or whatever they call themselves doing.”
On Thursday, Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson said in an interview that writing was on the wall weeks beforehand as it related to the situation with Prine.
“We weren’t going to say anything bad about him he wasn’t going to say anything bad about us, but that is a normal separation agreement. And we said you know, ‘take the time to do it,’ and over a period of two weeks we couldn’t get him to give us an answer. So, there was a day that he just didn’t show up he was AWOL. You know, police were asking, ‘where’s the chief?’ Then we had noticed that he absolutely cleaned his office out,” Mayor Stimpson said.
Mayor Sandy Stimpson elaborated at length on his office’s reasoning for placing Prine on administrative leave in a press release on Wednesday.
“Our citizens have entrusted me with the honor of making decisions that directly impact our police department’s ability to keep them safe,” said Stimpson. “Simply put, I am responsible for ensuring those men and women have the tools, training, resources, and leadership to do the job.”
“Conversely, if we are lacking in any one of those areas, I am responsible for addressing it.”
Stimpson noted that trust between the community and the police department has suffered because of Prine’s actions as Chief.
“In the last decade, we have worked to institute twenty-first century intelligence-led policing techniques to target offenders instead of neighborhoods using a data-driven approach. The results of this were better communication and more trust between the Mobile Police Department and the community.”
“In the last several months, there has been a breakdown in communications between Paul Prine and our intelligence unit. This has been particularly concerning to me.”
The mayor revealed that the city brought in a US attorney for a third party review in an attempt to restore trust.
“Additionally, concerns have been raised about a high frequency of officer involved incidents,” Stimpson said. “To help address those concerns and build back trust between the department and the community and in coordination with the Mobile City Council, we engaged former US Attorney Kenyen Brown to conduct a third-party review of policies, procedures, and training within the department. Specifically, we wanted to know that our policies, procedures, and training are in line with best practices in policing.”
Stimpson was not pleased with what the review found.
“I was shocked and disappointed to hear that at one open roll call in the first precinct, several officers who were present at the time confirmed that Prine said something to the effect of, ‘Don’t pay attention to what I say in the media, f*** the public,'” Stimpson said.
“The investigators found this remark to have set the tone for a cultural shift from respecting everyone in our community to the use of profanity and a lack of adherence to de-escalation training taught within MPD’s training academy.”
That wasn’t the only issue that Stimpson saw in the report.
“The investigators also relayed concerns around Prine’s authoritarian leadership style, saying he openly said that he uses fear in his management approach. There was also a series of frivolous complaints by Prine, which were demonstrably false.”
Stimpson said that in a show of respect for Prine ‘s 27 year career in law enforcement, he was offered a proper severance package. Prine, however, failed to respond for two weeks at which time Stimpson said a change was necessary.
“In consideration of all the information in front of me, I made the decision to go in a different direction with the leadership of the Mobile Police Department. Out of respect for Prine’s twenty-seven years of service to our community, we offered an amicable retirement with a reasonable severance package, which was in line with his current salary. We further advised him that we would need an answer from him quickly.”
“This was nearly two weeks ago.”
“Over the course of the last two weeks, we urged Prine for a response, while also giving him the privacy and time to make a decision. Unfortunately, during this time, he began packing up his office and became absent from his duties. Leadership of the department relayed that they were dead in the water with no one at the helm.”
“Any and all allegations of impropriety around contracts and invoices relayed by Prine in the last couple of weeks were immediately investigated by the city attorney and no improprieties were found.”
The Mayor’s office has also maintained that Prine requested a $600,000 lump sum payout to retire.
Austen Shipley is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News.
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