The arrest of Prichard’s police chief and one of his officers on corruption charges has prompted an extraordinary recommendation from Mobile County’s top prosecutor: abolish the police department entirely and start over.
Mobile County District Attorney Keith Blackwood made the recommendation public at a Wednesday press conference, hours after Prichard Police Chief Walter Knight and Officer Aaron Tucker were taken into custody on charges of using their public positions for personal gain and second-degree theft by deception.
“You deserve a police department worthy of your trust,” Blackwood said. “You deserve leaders who place public service above personal interests. That is not too much to ask.”
The charges against the chief
Knight, who has led the Prichard Police Department since 2016 after serving 16 years as an officer with the same department, was arrested early Wednesday morning at police headquarters. Officer Aaron Tucker was arrested at his home the same day.
According to Blackwood’s office, a special grand jury determined that Knight and Tucker misused public time and Prichard police vehicles while working private funeral processions. The two men, the district attorney said, were paid both as police officers and as private individuals for the same work — a double-dipping arrangement he said went on for years, with the pair working funeral escort jobs together multiple times a week while they were supposed to be on duty for the city.
“We believe they were working hand-in-hand and working side jobs, funeral processions during working time, being paid as officers and being paid by private companies,” Blackwood told reporters. “That also deprives citizens of Prichard of officers that were supposed to be on the streets protecting them.”
Both men were charged with use of official position for personal gain — an Ethics Act violation — and second-degree theft by deception, and both were booked into Metro Jail.
A grand jury’s sweeping remedy
The charges themselves were, in some sense, the least of it. A special grand jury that had been examining the department issued a report the same day recommending that the Prichard City Council immediately begin proceedings to remove Knight as chief — and, going further, that the city dismantle the current police department and create an entirely new one.
The grand jury recommended that the rebuilt department use nationally recognized accreditation standards as its framework, and that in the meantime Prichard contract with the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office and the county for law enforcement services. The report was delivered to Mayor Carletta Davis and the city council, with the district attorney’s office making clear that the next moves belonged to city leaders.
If Prichard follows through, it would be only the second city in Alabama to abolish its police department. The first was Hanceville, in Cullman County, which took the step in 2025 after its own criminal investigation.
The investigation that keeps growing
Wednesday’s arrests were not the beginning of Prichard’s reckoning — they were the latest chapter in an investigation that has been widening since June. Following the arrest of former officer Emanuel Dotch on federal bribery and evidence tampering charges, the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office took over day-to-day operations of the Prichard Police Department, an arrangement originally described as temporary but which now looks increasingly permanent.
The problems the investigation has surfaced run deeper than two officers’ side jobs. Investigators have described an evidence room with improperly stored items, criminal cases dismissed because affidavits were not properly signed by Prichard officers, and complications in a 2022 capital murder case. Out of a department of roughly 20 to 22 officers, six had been arrested as of Wednesday — and Blackwood said more arrests are possible.
“A lot of things” in the city need to change, Blackwood said, adding that his office’s investigation into Prichard “is just beginning.” He pointed to the ongoing civil conflict between Mayor Davis and the city council as evidence that the city’s problems extend beyond any single department. “Mayor Davis has been in office a very short amount of time, I think maybe nine or 10 months, and she has a monumental task ahead of her,” he said.
The price tag of a reset
Rebuilding a police department from nothing is expensive, and Sheriff Paul Burch put numbers on it. Prichard would need to spend at least $3 million to launch a new police department, he said, and another $2 million per year to keep it running.
For context: the city’s entire municipal budget is only about $3 million. The numbers illustrate why the grand jury recommended contracting with the sheriff’s office rather than immediate independence — and why the transition, even in the best case, will stretch over years. Burch said the sheriff’s office has received a number of grants to cover the costs of policing Prichard and minimize the financial burden on the county.
Blackwood flagged the financial dimension himself. “The financial component of this is going to be a major issue for the city of Prichard,” he said. “I think a lot of that needs to be worked out.”
What abolition would actually look like
Abolishing a police department is rare enough that there is little precedent to consult. Practically, it means dissolving the department as a municipal entity — eliminating its officers, its command structure and its budget line — and building something new: new hiring standards, new training, new leadership, and a new culture, benchmarked against national accreditation standards the grand jury cited.
The state’s other example, Hanceville, shows both the logic and the pain of the approach. After a criminal investigation gutted public confidence in that city’s department, city leaders concluded that reform from within was impossible and started over. Prichard’s version would likely be even more consequential: a city of more than 20,000 people, one of the largest in Mobile County, relying on county sheriff’s coverage for an extended transition.
What happens next
For now, the decision rests with the mayor and council, who must weigh the grand jury’s recommendation against the realities of a $3 million municipal budget and a police force that has already been hollowed out by arrests, resignations and administrative leave. Knight, for his part, has since sued the city, saying he never resigned and seeking his back pay — a sign that the legal fallout from the collapse will outlast the headlines.
Blackwood, meanwhile, has promised more to come. His office’s investigation into Prichard is, in his words, just beginning, and more individuals may be charged as it proceeds.
For the residents of Prichard — a city that has endured decades of financial and institutional strain — the message from the county’s top prosecutor was blunt but not without sympathy. “You deserve a police department worthy of your trust,” he said. Whether that trust is rebuilt by a reformed department or a brand-new one is now the city’s choice to make.