Birmingham City Councilor and FOP president disagree on who's to blame for department's retention, recruitment problems

A double homicide in Birmingham’s District Five early Monday morning happened in City Councilor Darrell O'Quinn's district. A shooting that started at a nightclub and ended outside of UAB Hospital’s emergency room. O'Quinn says the police department needs more officers to solve these homicides."My sense is that the number of police officers that we have to patrol our streets has continued to decline. And Jefferson County Personnel Board is, from my observation, not helping us to solve that problem,” O’Quinn said, “One of our biggest obstacles to recruitment and just getting a viable pool of candidates to select from."Birmingham’s Fraternal Order of Police president, DeAngelo Hall, says city leaders are to blame.“The personnel board is there to help. Not to hurt. It’s not there to mandate your hiring,” Hall said.Hall admits officers are leaving Birmingham and going to other municipalities with less crime."I would love for people to come work for Birmingham. When you have issues that the council will not address. Let's take 12 hours, for example. How do you have officers work 12 hours but not compensate them for that earned time, then compensate them for?” Hall said.The department averages 10 officers going through the academy and finishing. BPD has eight officers set to graduate. Hall says one fix would be to lower insurance costs for employees."I would say the insurance would be at the top of the list. By basically committing halfway, you would turn it completely out completely and giving us the assurance for free. That would be great,” Hall said.WVTM 13 asked Birmingham police how many solved homicides they have this year. We're told, as of 09/06/23, the Homicide Unit has the following 2023 stats: Open cases- 51 Closed cases by arrest- 33 Justified Homicides- 7 Ex-cleared due to the suspect being deceased- 1."Chief Thurmond states it is important to note that the unsolved cases are very actively being investigated and complex investigations such as homicide investigations take time to investigate."The department also bumped its salary, and they're offering a $5,000 hiring bonus to remain competitive. There's an academy class starting November 7th. These are all efforts they're taking to be competitive. If you’re interested in joining BPD, call the hiring team at 205-254-1712.