FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
FMR Mobile Police Chief Paul Prine - Midday Mobile - Wednesday 8-21-24
There will be no personal nor direct attacks on anyone and I would ask that you please try to Keep down the loud cheering and the clapping. There will be no booing and no unruly behavior With that this is painful and it will be for a long time After all these are a couple of high-stepping turkeys and you know what to say about a high stepper No step too high for a high stepper This is mid-day mobile with Sean Sullivan on FM talk 106-5. We're shot at tough. Yeah, I mean, I think everybody knows that you know Sean He took some licks he hangs in there Yeah, what's wrong with the beer we got? I mean the deal we got drink pretty good. Don't it? Did you hear what I said? So this is a main council. I had no doubt about them That doesn't suck if you don't like it too bad last question. Were you high on drugs? Last question kiss my point here. 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I'll refer my boy Trey get that junk gone now All right, good to see this man back in studio former police chief of the city mobile paul paren. Good to see you Hey, sean. How are you? I'm good. I'm good lots to talk about here and Coming off of I guess it was two weeks ago Kind of plans. I took the kid to college. I've lost a week there. I've kind of time morph there But yeah a couple weeks ago. Yeah a couple weeks ago Conversations about that was somebody else that was in this whole discussion That you first brought up on the show And I know that the attorney for leavey chris calahan has been on with the morning show And uh, landy up story came out and and I'm reading that and I think Dale leash and I talked about it But in there there's a lot of things I want to talk about but there's let's get to the meat right here And I'm paraphrasing and you probably know the quote for the paraphrasing that In his testimony leavey's testimony that this whole process was going on and he was asked to find an Unparaphrasing so don't I get find dirt on you or something to that effect when right? So the director just went to him and said look we need to get information on the chief We're trying to get him going in essence was was the ask so he but this was underneath the umbrella guess of the 321 insights well, uh, yeah for the review that was supposed to take place with operation echo stop and so in leavey's Um, you know situation he was in a conundrum, you know, am I am I gonna have to say things about the chief? That's not true because I know that that barber and last he wanted gone Uh, and so I think at my understanding is leavey came out with a way to write this report in a way Uh that gave the administration what it is that they wanted and it still do the peer review that was needed for you know Operation echo stop. Okay. So is your thought process that this whole peer review for echo stop is a a cover for Trying to I mean Did one happen because of the other I yeah, I think so and I think that was leavey's way of trying to appease the demands of the administration On getting this negative report as he stated that is because they wanted to use the report to tarnish my reputation And then of course you now know that last week in the land yap Mr. Levy has came forward and has since stated and I believe him that since my departure on april the ninth That simply the public safety director robert lasky went to him and said look we want you to go through the chief's emails and through his laptop Uh, so we can find additional dirt on him and the only reason you would want to do that is if you wanted to publicly shame Uh the person that you're trying to get information on and unfortunately I do believe Levy was telling the truth the administration knows leavey is telling the truth because he told it during the investigation and I believe that's why he was fired or really do This seems there's similarity when I read that story. I'm trying to have it with dale Uh that and that once again don't have it in front of me, but he had said so much of being offered another Job yeah being reassigned or say listen great question. Uh, this is what you talked about people don't remember when you came in here You said uh you were in some of the negotiations offered to stay on as a consultant or something Well, if you go back and look at the severance, uh, it was going to keep me on for a maximum of two years at my current rate of pay, which was $146,000 plus all benefits I wasn't good enough to be the chief, but you would still keep me on at that pay and I think that the similarity Yeah, that's here with leavey right if people didn't read it that he said he was offered be reassigned or another job here Still with the city right that's right. And if you've seen any of the texts that I've posted on my own A rally page that somebody had put up for me. I'd even put up with my similarity that after receiving the severance I had inquired with the mayor if he would uh give me a recommendation and he stated that he would and we were referring to the University of south alabama's police job and I knew that sandy had new joe bonner personally And so of course I put the text out that he says oh yeah, I'll be glad to give it to you But let's just get this deal done First of course, you know the deal never happened and I don't believe that sandy had any real intentions on following through with that as well And why then why i've offered the deal in the first place? Well, because I thought I think my my mind is is that they wanted me gone and at all costs We don't want to do anything We'll tell you anything that you need to know so long as that we get you out the door, right? But if if I was such a bad chief Why would we even why would we have to leave me on as a consultant? Why wouldn't you just say alabama's or a work at will state so to speak great So people don't understand that that the way our system works, you know with the zog be acted but on the Not is it married it's married employees. So you can be fired at will by the executive Well, not married employees. I'm a personal boy But appointees appointees can be fired at will they work at the pleasure of the executive branch That's exactly right. So the mayor could Nothing we keep the mayor from coming in right or wrong and say fact stuff Yeah, that's right. And you know levi really is a good person I think he's a good guy and I think because of his faith He refused to go along and do the things that he felt like were inappropriate or at least unethical But if you don't mind me saying listen what this amounts to in my opinion is just right out poor leadership This should have never became a spectacle a public spectacle. Okay Levy mentioned that it ruined his reputation and his ability to find employment You know, I have to echo those same sentiments I have spent 29 years of my adult life in the public sector building a reputation 18 years that I paid for student loans to to get promoted and to work my way up through the ranks of the police department Let me simply say this this is nothing more but jealousy and bruised egos on behalf of james barber And when I refused to go along and to release information to The community in my opinion to manipulate the black community to manipulate the thoughts of the black community Um, I think at that point he realized it was time for me to go and unfortunately we did have some incidences Uh, where were people lost their lives that were encountering with law enforcement, but let me say this irrespective to what they say You know, not one officer has been found liable not one officer has been proven to have done anything wrong in spite of the brown report And I'll simply yeah, because the brown report if y'all remember came out and would go through I remember we listened to it and he would talk about these things that weren't right, but at the end of each conclusion each Para whatever it would be a chapter. He would say but nothing illegal or unethical happened I'm paraphrasing that too. Right and with the exception Levy the athanis report said that and even though the mayor come out immediately on the day of the the athanis report was sent out You know, he came out and he said well, I'm glad that this investigation proved all of paul prawns allegations are wrong I should have fired him earlier. Absolutely not true. If you've read that report, it actually validates Every one of my allegations what the investigator said is there was there was gross dysfunction between the chief of police position And the administration and he couldn't get to the root calls I think he could have got to the root calls but to get to the root calls would actually have to finger point and say That the chief of staff was inside the business of the police department and you shouldn't have been there The chief of police should have been running the police department Now you said specifically to help us understand that this this takeaway that you had Chief staff barber say to you to release can take us back there and yeah, so exactly how that went down That's right. So, you know when I followed my initial grievance on barber It was because he tried it was a couple reasons But mainly because he tried to get me to release the or at least be a validating source to local media broadcast media company and I won't name the company but to validate that this was a credible source and that the the death of juan dallas was not called Specifically or directly by the police officer And he went into a tirade of why he does this he likes to try to control him and manipulate Sentiments or public faults and perceptions and but for me being under grand jury subpoena which means that we had already turned all the information regarding that case over to the da's office with mobile county Uh, the police department including the chief is under grand jury subpoena And so had i'd given out any information in any way that could have created a criminal problem for me I had two options, right? You go along with it. You commit a crime or at least an unethical situation or Worse, which is what I did and said no, I've got standards I got ethics i'm not going to do it And that was my demise from the begin with it was a no-win situation for me And i've always said that if I lost the job as being the police chief it will be for being the police chief You know, I think it's important to note Um, it's about bruised egos and sometimes I think when you do the job better than your predecessor Sometimes people's insecurities get in the way of that and as trivial And as middle school is that sound that's really what this amounts does to as a citizen because what I care is about is a safe community Well, you asked us let let me say this to you. What does mobile want? This is no longer about paul pryne. Yeah, I get I'm here and I appreciate the opportunity to To comment on on levies. Um, lanya particle But these people Everything they've accused me of doing they do And unfortunately, I think for me You asked mayor stems and on this show the last time he was here, I believe is the brown report the reason pryne is Fire and he emphatically told you no, but that's not what the severance stated And then they've changed their nor uh their their story from time to time to time to the severance proceed the brown report I mean well the severance article was before the brown report was made and it was like you can take option one or option two to salvage Your reputation and will either mitigate or not mitigate the brown report, which I think this thing is coming If you you tell me so that this report's coming if you do what we want then we're gonna kind of play Middleman in this messaging here. That's exactly how else can you take? Okay? Yeah, you can't mitigate something if you don't have the authority to mitigate and then of course We know now that the uh the canyon brown agreement they could mitigate it. Um, you know Let me say this we talk about transparency and I think it's important to say this The mayor said some really ugly things. I am simply trying to salvage what's left to my professional certainly reputation Okay, but let's look at it from this point. You know, the mayor talks about his motto one mobile My police staff was exactly the epitome of one mobile Has mayor stemson or jim barber went to any of the black radio stations wblx cumulative Wgokay have they done any of that without an agenda? Why I would argue they've never done it have they ever went to a black church and just simply worship with the black folks in the church Without an agenda. I would argue they won't let Here's your underlining issue jim barber is the mayor's chief of staff And what's important to understand here is that job was simply supposed to be an aid to the mayor Now the mayor can appoint him as a representative and apparently he has to give him this unilateral authority To have over all these leaders, right? But at the end of the day We have to ask this have we been through three police chiefs in three years. You've been through Three fire chiefs in five years. You've been through several directors in the last couple of years It can't be everyone else. So the question is Who's given the mayor this advice the mayor is going on an apology tour Within the rain confided the police department every single week and he's apologizing to the guys about the brown report He didn't know what was in the report If you don't know what was in the report then somebody told you what was in the report and if somebody told you they're giving you bad advice And at some point in in the real world We get rid of those people that are being deceptive. I gave mayor stamps and unfortunately a lot of plausible deniability thinking well, maybe he was just naive and I think if you've read my emails you see that But I have no choice but to believe he is complicit. There's no other way else to take it The black community I brought that up specifically because if you'll remember the mayor, I think said on your show That they hired the PM group to teach me how to Message with the black community. I needed some help there, which you know, I think that's laughable Yeah, but nonetheless, I think what the community wants is Transparency and nobody gave them that more than this guy right here Uh, whether you like the message or you didn't like the message I was genuine. I was truthful and I had integrity with it. Okay. I don't believe in manipulating people At all cost What I have found with the black community in my opinion the black people and they just they just want to be treated equal Yeah, and they all have this at listen. I've been to community means they all have The same goal a safe community. So I would ask mobillians. What is it that you want? It's really not about me or even Kevin Levy at this point. What is it that this community wants you alluded to it All you want is a safe community. Mm-hmm. Does business growth happen because of low crime rate? Sure, are we gonna annex just to get the growth population up? Or are we going to continue to allow the money to be siphoned over to bawling county? I want to stay here. I live in mobill county. I want to stay here I've got 27 years invested with the city of mobill police department took three bullets for the city Nobody jim barber hasn't given more to this city than paul primes given But unfortunately jim barber is behind the show. He's running the show. He's calling the shines And i'm bent on seeing this thing through unfortunately coming right back bawled with paul prime right here on big day mobill Mm-hmm This is mid day mobile with Sean Sullivan on fm talk 1 0 6 5 Right down 124 fm talk 1 0 6 5 mid day mobile few more minutes with former police chief paul prine Chief this a lot of text coming in this one. Okay. This is real world stuff. This is This is from jason Is there any chance that barber or lasky has been man enough to Profess man enough or professional enough to contact the chief since his departure if you had a conversation with them after since you've left I've had no conversation Uh with anybody of the administration since i left absolutely not there's no reason to they made it very adversarial Um, you know, I think there was a point where I I do want to go back and say, you know We're simply here because of ego and it's not my ego. It's jim barber's ego And we're here because jim barber had asked me to do a thing that I felt was unethical or even potentially criminal Because once getting to back up here So you told me that jim barber came to you and said I need you to be the source or release this information on juan dallis You said because y'all had already turned it over to the attorney general. You're not allowed Well, we've already turned it over to the da's office consideration sure of the grand jury And so that put me in a at that point or you gagged. I mean, are you not supposed to be able to speak about it? Right. I don't yeah, I can't give any information because we could test the law that is the law that we could take the jury pool Uh, when that case has not been heard so you're saying he asked you to break the law I think he asked me to break the law and of course, you know, there'll be a time when we send that information up to the proper authorities It's not right now. Uh, but there that is a time and that the fact that I gave that to sandy stemson And I gave that to the city attorney. It should have been investigated immediately and it was not investigated I also have to tell you no one asked in this has barber. Not been asked. Did you ask chief prime to do this? I cannot tell you what the mayor the mayor said he's investigated and they were all frivolous complaints, but we now know Uh that that has not been investigated. We now know that when I filed the grievance on rob lasky in january Levi has since come forward not just publicly But before he was terminated he went into that special investigation and he told bill of thana's the truth that they were trying to house the police chief The man barber tried to ask me to do something that was unethical and potentially criminal and it would have compromised my integrity Do you know that part of the police department's oath of office says that we won't be intimidated? That we need to protect those in essence and i'm paraphrasing that have been bullied We won't back down for fear or an intimidation And you have to ask yourself. Where's the intern chief been? The intern chief and the four majors the executive staff of the police department every single one of them knew This was going on since I filed my grievance very transparent with them We do know that that major mccreary tried to send an email out and wanted to go public after the brown report was made public Why were they shut up the assistant chief now the intern chief You know came out and said they would do a public release. You've seen no public release on it Why are they not addressing the issues? Uh, I believe the intern chief to channel five last week. He was too busy to give him Information in regards to the uptick of crime. They're up in homicides They're up apparently and and and crime violent crime particular and nobody's addressing the issue and it just seems to me broadcast media Is not pressing for the truth. You won't transparency, but now more than ever you're not giving that transparency And it's all at the ham of jim barber and and I would just simply ask mobians. What is it that you want? If you don't demand accountability listen Sean Agree or disagree nothing affects people more than local government not state Not federal government Local government and then will you and I behind closed doors along with everybody else will gripe and complain That the government's corrupt, but now you have a situation like this. Where is the accountability? If you're not going to do it now Do we do it at election time next year? I've got about 35 seconds left so I can ask you what's next for you? What's coming next? Well next for me is um, we have already filed an intent to sue with the city of mobile and see the city To sue the city for defamation and we've asked them to retract all the statements They made that were false knowing that they were false. I don't suspect that they would do such a thing Certainly because you know they would have to own it But nonetheless, that's what courts for that's the courts are the ones that's going to give you the remedy My thoughts are once we get the transcripts we do a full investigation and get people Deposed, I think then you'll find the real truth of where we at with the situation All right, we'll have to check back in with us soon. You got it. All right from achieve paul pine. Thanks for being here Coming right back more midday mobile Big meeting in fair hope last night more discussion of the dredge Spoil and what happens with it cana rear from mobile bankkeeper joins us coming up next You You You You (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)