Three Mobile City Council members say they are disappointed with the first round of police department promotions carried out under a new hiring and advancement process the council paid roughly half a million dollars to put in place.
The city hired Colorado-based Booth Research Group last December to overhaul promotion protocols previously handled by the Mobile County Personnel Board, with diversity in the police and fire departments cited as a key goal. When the department announced the promotion of 27 officers under the new process, council members Fred Richardson, Levon Manzie and C.J. Small sent a letter to Mayor Sandy Stimpson expressing what they called their “disdain and disappointment” with the results.
The letter argued that despite supporting the Booth contract in good faith, the council members now believe the city may be worse off on diversity than before. It came shortly after Police Chief James Barber announced a restructuring of command-level positions, including swearing in former Prichard police chief Lawrence Battiste as assistant chief. The previous holder of that role, Joseph Kennedy, moved into a newly created civilian chief-of-staff position and took a pay cut from $110,000 to $65,000 in the process. The council’s letter described the assistant chief appointment as a “political spoil.”
Barber defended the changes as consistent with a strategic plan he laid out when he became chief in 2013. Of the promotions overall, 11 officers moved from officer to corporal, seven from corporal to sergeant, five from sergeant to lieutenant, two from lieutenant to captain and two from captain to major. Barber said roughly a third of those promoted were African American and that eleven promotions overall went to candidates from diverse backgrounds, including women, though none of the four highest-ranking promotions went to minority candidates.
Barber attributed that gap to a limited pool of minority candidates who tested for the captain rank, saying only two of more than twenty lieutenants who tested were minorities. He argued that building a deeper, more diverse pipeline of qualified candidates over time is necessary before those gains show up at the top of the chain of command.
Stimpson, through a spokesperson, backed the promotion process as a step forward for building a more diverse police force, while the council members’ letter made clear they intend to keep pressing the administration on the issue.