The Mobile County Sheriff’s Office is seeking a $777,813 federal grant to hire four more deputies, money it says it will need if a temporary takeover of the Prichard Police Department becomes permanent.
The application for U.S. Department of Justice funding appeared on the agenda for the Mobile County Commission’s Thursday morning work session. The money would come from the DOJ’s COPS Office Hiring Program and would require the county to pay a local match of $194,453.34.
Why the sheriff’s office is applying now
Chief Deputy Frank Cassady told commissioners the agency wants to apply because it could need the deputies if Prichard disbands its police department and cedes full control to the county. MCSO has managed the day-to-day operations of the Prichard Police Department since June, after the arrest of officer Emanuel Naman Dotch on multiple charges of bribery, evidence tampering and more.
The investigation has continued to widen. U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama Sean Costello has said investigators are looking into other Prichard officers who may have worked with Dotch, and in early July deputies took officer Jihad Hasan Irby into custody on similar charges of extortion and bribery.
Cassady said the grant funds would cover the cost of four deputies.
“If Prichard does end up closing their police department and we have to take over, this will help alleviate some of the cost of the employees that we would have to hire to take over Prichard,” he said. “If Prichard does not fold and we end up giving it back to Prichard, we could always not accept the award, but the grant closes on the 19th. If we don’t apply now, we can’t come back later once we find out the future of Prichard.”
Can MCSO handle both jobs?
Cassady said there is “no way” the Sheriff’s Office could manage its own operations and those of Prichard without hiring new officers. When commissioners pressed him for numbers, he could not estimate how much overtime pay MCSO might incur while running Prichard’s law enforcement duties on top of its regular patrol duties.
The uncertainty underscores the scope of the arrangement. Prichard is one of Mobile County’s larger cities, with tens of thousands of residents, and providing police service to it means staffing patrols, investigations, dispatch coordination and jail transport around the clock. MCSO’s management role was originally framed as temporary, but months in, officials on both sides have begun planning for what happens if it is not.
A decision looming for the commission
The commission could vote on the grant application during its regular meeting the following Monday. Approving the application would not commit the county to accepting the award, which preserves flexibility while the future of the Prichard Police Department is sorted out.
City and county leaders have been weighing options for months, including a possible contract under which MCSO would provide policing services to Prichard on a long-term basis, a model several smaller Baldwin County municipalities already use with their own sheriff’s office. The FBI-led corruption investigation into the Prichard department remains active, and officials have said additional charges or arrests are possible.
For now, the application puts the county in position to move quickly in either direction: hire the deputies needed to absorb Prichard permanently, or walk away from the award if the city rebuilds its own department and takes back control.