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As Birmingham police struggle with staffing, mayor pledges more officers will patrol entertainment districts

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As Birmingham police struggle with staffing, mayor pledges more officers will patrol entertainment districts

Mayor Randall Woodfin said Tuesday that Birmingham police will have an increased presence in the city’s entertainment districts by this weekend after the Sept. 21 mass shooting in Five Points South that left four people dead and many more injured.

That’s “citywide, not just in the Five Points South area,” Woodfin said. “We, as in the Birmingham Police Department, speaking of leadership, not only are committed but will be providing additional manpower to these entertainment district areas.”

Officially designated Entertainment Districts allow people to walk outdoors with alcoholic drinks in a designated area.

Birmingham has four designated Entertainment Districts: Uptown Entertainment District, which includes Protective Stadium, BJCC and City Walk; Pepper Place Entertainment District, which includes Lakeview and the 29th Street South corridor; the Avondale Entertainment District along 41st Street North near Avondale Park; and the Five Points South Entertainment District, which includes the Five Points Circle where the Hush Lounge shooting took place on Saturday.

Woodfin, in his report to the City Council on Tuesday, acknowledged criticism that the Birmingham Police Department is short on officers.

“We acknowledge we need more police officers,” Woodfin said Tuesday. “That’s not something we run from.”

Birmingham has already increased the starting pay for officers to $51,000 a year, plus a $5,000 signing bonus, with a take-home patrol car that helps increase visibility for police patrols in the city, he said.

It’s not a matter of needing to allocate more money, Woodfin said. “The money is in the budget,” he said.

The city has funding for more than 1,000 police employees, including about 720 sworn officers.

It’s a matter of recruiting enough officers to fill all those positions, a problem faced by other large urban police departments across the country, he said.

The city does not release the exact number of sworn officers currently employed by the city. State Rep. Juandalynn Givan said Monday she believes the city may be as many as 400 officers short, for a city that should have about 800 officers. She suggested that in the event of a “catastrophic event,” the city may need to ask Gov. Kay Ivey to send the National Guard.

Woodfin called that suggestion “whack.” Givan said on Tuesday that it’s happened before. In 2011, after tornadoes devastated sections of Birmingham, she called on Gov. Robert Bentley to send the National Guard to prevent looting in Pratt City, and soldiers sent from the Guard did prevent looting and helped keep law and order.

Woodfin said the Birmingham Police Academy just graduated one of its largest classes in several years.

That was 28 graduating officers, said city spokesman Rick Journey, bringing this year’s total of police cadet graduates to 38 after an earlier class of 10. That’s an improvement on the previous two years.

The city graduated 24 new officers in both 2022 and 2023. That was down from 39 police academy graduates in 2021 and 53 in 2020.

The answer to fully staffing the police department remains aggressive recruitment and incentives, Woodfin said.

“We’re going to continue to be overly aggressive at the local level from a marketing standpoint, from a word-of-mouth standpoint, from a relationship standpoint to be dogmatic and overly aggressive in hiring police,” Woodfin said.

The city hires from a list provided by the Jefferson County Personnel Board.

“We just can’t unilaterally hire,” Woodfin said. “They have to approve our hiring ideas.”

Nevertheless, the city will continue to hire more police, he said.

“We are going to be in a position to continue enhance police presence, as well as show this community we mean business,” he said.

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