Oct 13, 2023

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Decatur police walked back initial accounts of the fatal shooting of Stephen Perkins on Sept. 29, saying Perkins did not “refuse” to drop a weapon as originally reported and instead was ordered to “get on the ground” before he was shot.

Police Chief Todd Pinion released the revised narrative of the police encounter with Perkins on Thursday, correcting the original public statement by police.

Police have said Perkins pulled a gun on a tow truck driver attempting to repossess his vehicle early on the morning of Sept. 29. The driver left but returned with police officers more than an hour later, police said at the time.

Police said Perkins came outside with a gun and began to threaten the tow truck driver and turned his gun toward the officer who shot him. The original public statement from police said: “Officers on scene ordered the homeowner to drop his weapon, which he refused to do.”

The new narrative says police instead told Perkins to “get on the ground” before firing. “That means that we also erred in stating Mr. Perkins ‘refused’ to drop his firearm prior to the shooting,” reads the new statement from Pinion.

In its first meeting since Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, igniting a war in the Middle East, the Huntsville city council expressed its support for Israel, a longtime ally of the United States.

The one-page resolution was sponsored by Bill Kling, the dean of the city council, and passed unanimously at Thursday’s meeting.

The resolution proclaims that Mayor Tommy Battle and the city council “express great concern and support Israel in its efforts to defend itself. We stand unified and offer our sincerest thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.”

The relevance of the resolution is to offer support for Huntsville’s Jewish community.

State Rep. John Rogers and his longtime assistant share both federal corruption charges and a Shelby County home, according to information provided at their arraignments Thursday in federal court.

The longtime Birmingham Democrat and his assistant, Varrie Johnson Kindall, yesterday appeared in court to hear charges against them stemming from an alleged kickback scheme involving public money. Both pleaded not guilty before Magistrate Judge Staci G. Cornelius at the Hugo L. Black Federal Courthouse in Birmingham.

Rogers, 82, is charged with one count of obstruction of justice and one count of obstruction of justice by bribery, according to the indictment in late September.

The indictment says Rogers attempted to bribe an unnamed person to lie to federal investigators about a kickback scheme in exchange for receiving public funding for the person’s unnamed nonprofit organization.

The Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission on Thursday approved changes to its rules for awarding business licenses, a process stalled for four months by mistakes and lawsuits.

A key change in the new rules is that business applicants will be allowed to make public presentations to the AMCC before it tries to award licenses for a third time.

AMCC Chairman Rex Vaughn said the changes, approved as an emergency rule during a meeting at the Alabama State House, came in response to claims made by applicants in their lawsuits.

The AMCC first awarded licenses in June, but those were stopped because of mistakes made in tabulating the scores used to rank applicants.

The AMCC fixed the scores and awarded licenses again in August, but lawsuits alleging violations of the open meetings law and other problems again stopped the AMCC from issuing licenses.

The litigation is ongoing. Montgomery County Circuit Judge James Anderson consolidated most of the lawsuits. The next hearing is set for Wednesday.

Alabama is one of 38 states that have approved medical marijuana, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

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