With roughly 2,000 people watching a Facebook livestream and City Hall nearly full, the Orange Beach City Council meeting on July 7 held together through its regular agenda — ice cream truck regulations, fire truck pricing — and then came apart during public comment.
The trigger was the same one that has divided the city for more than a year: police body camera footage from a Sept. 2, 2024, response to a domestic call at the city’s Coastal Resources building.
How the City Got Here
The dispute traces back to a 911 call placed by a bartender at a marina restaurant on Terry Cove, who reported seeing a naked man physically and verbally assaulting a woman on the balcony of a city-owned building. According to an anonymously leaked audio recording published in August 2025, the man identified himself to responding officers as Mayor Tony Kennon.
The incident became a defining storyline of the city’s 2025 municipal election. Opponents of Kennon, mayor since 2008, used it to argue he was unfit for office, while Kennon and his family repeatedly took to social media to push back on what they characterized as attacks on the family. Kennon won reelection with nearly 60% of the vote.
The city has declined requests to release the body camera footage. Under Alabama Code 12-21-3.1(b), police body camera recordings are not considered public records, and the city clerk has cited a 2021 Alabama Supreme Court decision in support of the denial. Multiple public records requests, including from news organizations, have been rejected on those grounds.
What remains is litigation. Orange Beach resident C.C. Moreno, an attorney who posts near-daily about the mayor and the city on social media, sued over the denial. She originally filed seven counts; a judge’s ruling on March 31 allowed four to proceed. The surviving claims include the public records request itself, a First Amendment free-speech claim against the city and Kennon individually, a claim that the city follows a policy or custom of nondisclosure and evidence concealment, and a request for mandamus or injunctive relief on the records question.
Public Comment Turns Personal
At the July 7 meeting, resident and private investigator Wendy Pickering spoke in favor of keeping the footage sealed, arguing that state law exists for a reason.
“It is simply a record of a police encounter, and sometimes it documents innocent people, innocent victims, sometimes it documents people at the lowest level in their lives,” she said. “Once that footage is released, the damage to that person’s reputation and privacy can never be undone. The legislature recognized those privacy concerns when it enacted the law, and those protections exist for a reason.”
Pickering then accused Councilwoman Ginger Harrelson of spreading falsehoods about her online, including an allegation that she had stalked three council members. From the audience, Harrelson’s husband, Hunter Harrelson, called out, “You are a liar.”
Kennon paused the proceedings and signaled the police officer stationed at the door. Councilwoman Harrelson asked whether her husband was going to be removed.
“If he keeps interrupting me, I will,” Kennon replied, adding that anyone wishing to speak could take the podium.
Hunter Harrelson later did exactly that, asking Kennon whether he had ever met with private investigators to look into him, his wife, and council members Jeff Silvers and Robert Stuart.
“Who the heck do you think you are walking up and talking to me like that?” Kennon responded.
When Councilwoman Harrelson pressed the same question, Kennon said flatly: “I have never met with a private investigator, ever … You prove it — please. If you got the evidence, bring the evidence.”
Harrelson’s answer: “I would like to bring the evidence by releasing the body cam footage.”
An Ethics Complaint Hangs Over the Council
Harrelson, elected in 2025, has been the most vocal council member pushing for release of the recording.
“I want to find a legal way to release the body cam footage,” she said after the July 7 executive session. “I want the City of Orange Beach to heal and move on, and there’s enough public attention and scrutiny over this issue.”
She is one of three council members — along with Robert Stuart and Jeff Silvers — who filed an ethics complaint against Kennon on May 1. The complaint alleges the mayor threatened council members during an April 21 executive session after they expressed a desire to release the footage.
Kennon has said he will let the process play out. “I trust the ethics commission,” he said. “I’m going to let them do their job and run its course and then let the chips fall where they may.”
Residents Are Losing Patience
Not everyone in the room was interested in the fight. “This arguing in the city council meeting is not the way things should be done,” resident Sharon McFadden said from the public comment podium.
After the meeting adjourned and an executive session concluded, council members Pat Simpson and Harrelson struck a more conciliatory tone. Simpson, appointed last month to fill the vacancy left by Jerry Johnson’s retirement, won his seat on a 4-1 vote, with Kennon casting the lone dissent.
“It’s not going to stay that way. It’s going to get better. We just ask for patience,” Simpson said.
“I have a great working relationship with each of my fellow council members,” Harrelson said. “We speak regularly every day, or every other day, and I know that we’re all trying to do the best thing for the city of Orange Beach right now, and those decisions are very difficult decisions, unfortunately.”
With a lawsuit pending, an ethics complaint under review and a council divided against its mayor, the body camera dispute shows no sign of resolving on its own.