If Jay Jones wins the November election through a write-in campaign, Cam Hunt wouldn’t necessarily have to accept the result without question. Alabama law provides a process for contesting elections. But a successful challenge would require more than pointing to something questionable about the campaign. That possibility raises an interesting question in Lee County, where…
Voters in Barbour County will have several decisions to make when they head to the polls on November 3. While much of the attention across Alabama has been on the governor’s race and control of Congress, some of the decisions closer to home deserve just as much attention. Barbour County includes several small towns and…
There’s something unusual about the effort to return Jay Jones to the Lee County sheriff’s office. A Republican sheriff who lost his own party’s primary is now receiving support from people who don’t necessarily agree with his politics, or even with each other. Jones lost the May Republican primary to Cam Hunt by 307 votes….
You get pulled over and realize you don’t have your driver’s license with you. But you’ve got a picture of it saved on your phone, so you figure that should be good enough. After all, it shows your name, photograph, license number, and everything else that’s printed on the actual card. The officer can use…
I’ve never had a problem with organizations using confidentiality agreements for legitimate purposes. Businesses have information they need to protect, and there are plenty of circumstances where an agreement restricting disclosure makes sense. But I have a problem when those same agreements are used to prevent somebody from talking about sexual abuse. As of October…
A police officer already has plenty of information they can’t release. Criminal investigations, confidential personnel records, protected personal information, and security details aren’t things officers should be discussing with just anybody. Those restrictions come with the job, and there’s a good reason for them. So when a city decides its officers need to sign an…
Back in July 2026, I posted a video explaining that an Alabama police chief has the authority to make any vehicle an emergency vehicle. I didn’t expect that statement to be particularly controversial, but I quickly discovered just how many people on Facebook apparently know more about Alabama law than the people responsible for enforcing…
I understand why people ask for a supervisor. Sometimes they think the officer is wrong. Sometimes they don’t trust what they’re being told. Sometimes they think another officer will see it differently. And sometimes they’ve watched enough videos online to think asking for a supervisor is the police version of speaking to the manager, where…
I went through the police academy for the first time in 1998. Twenty-eight years later, I went through it again. A lot changed in that time, including me, but one thing became even clearer the second time around: The police academy is a terrible place to start getting ready for the police academy. By the…
Most people don’t deal with traffic stops very often. Police officers do, and that difference alone can create a lot of uncertainty. You may wonder why the officer is still sitting behind you instead of walking up, why you’re being asked a particular question, or why something that seemed simple is taking several minutes. Sometimes…