Aug 02, 2024

We're talking politics -- presidential and Alabama's Congressional District 2 -- over on the podcast.

Thanks for checking in with us. Here's some news, and y'all have a great weekend.

Ike Morgan

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A Walker County Jail corrections officer who was charged in last year's death of Tony Mitchell has agreed to plead guilty, reports AL.com's Carol Robinson.

You might remember that Michell was arrested on charges that he shot at deputies who'd responded to a welfare check on him. Accusations of his poor treatment in jail included severe neglect and the withholding of medical care.

The plea agreement states that Mitchell was often without clothes, wet and lying on a concrete floor covered in feces.

Corrections officer Joshua Conner Jones pled guilty to two cases involving unnamed inmates, but one inmate's circumstances match Mitchell's case. His attorney confirmed it was connected to the Mitchell death.

Jones will be arraigned later this month. He could face up to life in prison.

One of the most frustrating aspects of fighting crime in some areas is the public's reluctance to help police. Notably in Birmingham, law-enforcement leaders and city officials have long begged citizens to speak up if they have information about a crime.

Well, it could be that folks' distaste for the criminal element is starting to outweigh their distaste for getting involved.

AL.com's Carol Robinson reports that Metro Area Crime Stoppers statistics show there were more tips called in during the first half of this year than there were all of last year.

Metro Area Crime Stoppers Chairman Frank Barefield said tips from January through June led to 157 arrests in felony cases in the Birmingham area.

Crime Stoppers broke a monthly record in April by paying out $13,250 in rewards for tips received. He said those tips led to 32 felony arrests and clearing 99 cases that included murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, rape and drug trafficking.

There is an ongoing joint operation with Birmingham Police and U.S. Marshals that's resulted in the arrests of 23 homicide suspects since May.

The "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico grew into a large one this summer, about the size of New Jersey, reports AL.com's Margaret Kates. It's bigger than it's been since 2019 and thousands of square miles above the five-year average.

While the area meeting criteria to be called a "dead zone" is off the Louisiana coast, the nutrients coming out of the Mississippi River that cause the dead zone also can affect the levels of dissolved oxygen in the water off the Alabama Gulf Coast as well.

Those nutrients include nitrogen and phosphorous from fertilizer that makes its way into the Mississippi River. And since the Big River drains between a third and half the continental United States, that's a lot of nutrients. They feed algae, which then grows like a weed in the Gulf, eventually dies. The decomposing algae uses up the oxygen in the water. That kills off the less-mobile species and causes fish to swim elsewhere.

This year that dead zone measures 6,705 square miles -- or more than 4 million acres.

“I will live with the shame and hope that in someday I can be forgiven. My conduct is not representative of Nick’s in the Sticks’ practice or policies.”

Jack Moltz, an employee of the popular Tuscaloosa restaurant and whose wife owns the establishment, after he was accused of using a racial slur. He initially denied using the word, which led to a social-media firestorm.

I think this week's news-review quiz is the hardest one yet. But you be the judge.

In 1961, former Auburn and NFL tight end Ed West of Colbert County.

John Hammontree joins us to talk about the presidential race and how it might affect Alabama's reconfigured Congressional District 2.

You can find “Down in Alabama” wherever you get your podcasts, including these places:

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