A Foot in the Back & a Gun to the Head...

Obviously rumors are rampant at this point over what really happened on June 2nd at the Hurricane Creek Baptist Church near Vina in Franklin County. Red Bay Police Chief Jana Jackson has issued a public statement, but she's impeded by being able to say only so much concerning an ongoing investigation. Church members have commented publicly, but their accounts have been reported in snips and sometimes the sequence of events has not meshed in all of them.

Was there wrong on both sides? We think Mr. Steve Scott, a church deacon, would have fared much better if he had not asked Red Bay Sgt. Kyle Palmer a second question. Does that mean Mr. Scott deserved the physical abuse he took from Palmer? Remember, the good sergeant was working with a group of rural Baptists, not the Hell's Angels. A kind word from him would have gone far. Instead, Palmer chose to show these radical anarchists just who was in charge on church property. Nothing like drawing a gun to show who's boss.

Is this a rare instance of abuse of police authority in Franklin County? If you've read our blog for a while, you may remember our mention of another Franklin County event that we've been asked not to blog about in order to protect the jobs of innocent victims. We have no wish to delve deeply into this and hurt the innocent, but perhaps we can offer our readers a snippet of what happened in the city of Russellville a few years ago.

There was a place where people lived, worked, and gathered...and one sold dope. Did any of the others know? We're told they didn't. We do know most didn't have a clue as to any illegal activity. A woman exited her vehicle, saw the glint of a gun, and was told to hit the ground. When her knees and weight made the act of hitting the ground too slow a go for the officer, he placed his foot in her back, pushed her to the ground, placed a gun to her head, and told her if she wanted to see her family again she would do as he said. The woman had a large family, many of them sick, many of them young. She did what the officer said. Later she had to visit a hospital with her injuries. Her attorney, a local all-purpose country barrister, advised her to "forget it."

Again we ask if these events are rare? We somehow doubt it. Should you report an officer if he's rude? We wouldn't--maybe he was just having a bad day. Should you report an officer if he's physically abusive when no one deserved such treatment? If you don't, his next victim could wind up in the cemetery where he will have no earthly voice.

No, we don't think the members of the Hurricane Creek Baptist Church were wrong to complain. Let's hope it does some good.



Shoalanda