BALDWIN COUNTY

BALDWIN COUNTY

If you live in Baldwin County then you know that local news print is almost non existent. Citizens are at a disadvantage at knowing what the real truth is and politicians are fine with that.

Community engagement or public participation is probably 1 to 3% of the population. Fact is, most councils, Fairhope for one, would be fine with no community engagement or public participation.

If you would like to be a little more informed please check out Lagniappe.

Some of the articles below have a paywall, however, free copies are available throughout Baldwin County. Check out their distribution locations.

Another way is to tune into the local news and events is: Backstory Podcast, The Ripp Report Facebook page or Baldwin County Legal Eagle.

https://rippreport.com/.

Contact us anytime about political corruption or consumer issues. We love TIPS.

A week after election and some things are the same. In Fairhope, the infamous McSharry, is being represented by no less than BP, Boom Boom Pittman’s brother, James. The apple does not fall far from the tree. Mr Pittman is blaming Lagniappe, the Mayor and attorneys for his client’s actions.

James Pittman is now including the business in which the assault took place, Little Whiskey Christmas Club, to his list of legal intimidation by requesting two years of video footage.

WTH Why doesn’t he look at the video of the assault?

Oh I forgot the Fairhope City Attorney failed to properly file the assault charge.

Three times.

It is now a moot issue. So Pittman now is only defending the intoxication charge. The City attorney has failed numerous times to file the proper documents in the McSharry case.

What’s next?

Him forgetting this all happened while McSharry was on probation?

The Fairhope City Council has yet to address the issue or explain to the citizens of Fairhope how a woman can be assaulted in a downtown business — by a green card holder, and he is allowed to go unpunished.

Why is the city attorney and the city council protecting a green card holder?

The soon to be Mayor of Fairhope, Sherry Sullivan, is making her position very clear, “She would embrace the city’s growth rather than seek any stringent attempts to regulate it”. Her special interest supporters are licking their lips to provide, “affordable housing with limited building requirements”.

The Council, Jack Burrell, will run Fairhope and Sullivan will be his rubber stamp and ribbon cutter. Sullivan won with 17% of the registered voters, something tells me those who chose not to vote in 2020, will show up in 2024.

Baldwin County Sheriff’s Department just got approval from the County Commission for $662,567.00 for 129 body cameras and related technology. If these funds are tax money, then one would think the video footage should be available to the public. If the footage can be altered, selectively edited or denied to the public, then why would we spend tax dollars on this distorted transparency.

“Sheriff Hoss Mack told the commission Monday cloud-based computing related to the retention of camera footage and other records is one of BCSO’s largest expenses and videos are often stored for several years in criminal cases. Notably, Mack and BCSO have rarely released any body-cam footage to the public, and in July, attorneys for this newspaper and BCSO met at the Alabama Supreme Court to argue whether body-cam footage from the officer-involved shooting death of Jonathan Victor in 2017 is considered public records.

In that case, BCSO was called to the scene of a single-vehicle accident on Interstate 10 after they were told the victim was acting combatively toward first responders. After ordering Victor to drop an item in his hands and comply, BCSO Sgt. Matt Hunady shot Victor with his service rifle, killing him. The item was later determined to be a fanny pack and no weapon was found.”

The Sheriff should be required to make all video public. If the public has to go to the Supreme Court to view any videos, they paid for, then the county commission should reconsider the purchase.

Sheriff Mack already has a special investigative team that investigates themselves.

Now he wishes to use the video footage as a defense of the Sheriff’s department while refusing to release any incriminating evidence related to the BCSO.

Currently four separate incidents involving BCSO have resulted in loss of life.

WHERE ARE THE VIDEO’S?