One dangerously overcrowded prison in Alabama has nearly a quarter of all the state’s confirmed COVID-19 cases among inmates and staff. 

Twenty percent of all confirmed COVID-19 cases among staff and inmates in Alabama’s prisons were at Staton Correctional Facility in Elmore County, as of Friday, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections. 

Twenty-four workers and 15 inmates have tested positive for the virus at Staton prison, which in March was at 276 percent capacity, according to ADOC’s latest monthly statistical report. There were 1,405 men serving in the prison built for 508, according to the department’s data. 

ADOC announced Friday that seven more employees, three of them at Staton prison, and two inmates tested positive for COVID-19. 

The other confirmed cases among workers were at the Bibb Correctional Facility, the Bullock Correctional Facility, the St. Clair Correctional Facility and one employee at the Criminal Justice Center in Montgomery, which houses the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. 

Two men serving at the Easterling Correctional Facility also tested positive for coronavirus and were moved to “medical isolation” in the facility, according to the department. 

Of the 48 inmates who’ve tested positive for COVID-19, 14 have since recovered. Forty-nine of the 145 ADOC employees who have tested positive have recovered. Four men serving in state prisons have died after testing positive for COVID-19.

ADOC had tested 277 of the state’s approximately 22,000 inmates as of Friday.

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Alabama was added to a travel ban list set by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment on Wednesday as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to rise. 

“Those who have traveled to the following locations need to quarantine for 14 days after arrival in Kansas. This applies to both Kansas residents and those visiting Kansas,” The Kansas department’s website reads. 

Alabama joined Arizona and Maryland on that list. Additionally, anyone who’s been on a cruise ship or river cruise, or traveled internationally, must quarantine for 14 days upon return to Kansas. 

Alabama added 787 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, the sixth highest daily count since the pandemic began. On Thursday, the state added 882 cases, the third highest daily count. 

Because of the variations and inconsistencies in the times that labs report totals to ADPH, the Alabama Political Reporter has been tracking seven-day and fourteen-day rolling averages to smooth out the data.

The state’s fourteen-day average of new daily cases on Friday was a record 679, meaning more cases have been recorded over the last 14 days than during any previous 14-day period. At least 9,510 cases have been recorded in the last two weeks. That’s roughly a third of the state’s total case count.

The percent of tests that are positive also remains very high, another indicator that COVID-19 continues to actively spread. The seven-day rolling average of the state’s positivity rate increased by 74 percent in the last two weeks, and was at 11.69 percent on Thursday, the third highest on record. 

A steady rise in hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients continues to worry state health officials and physicians as well. Because of the many variables that come with testing and the recording of those test results, hospitalizations are a good indicator that the virus remains active. 

Wednesday saw a new high in the number of people in hospitals being treated for COVID-19 — at 688. The previous high was Tuesday at 683. On Friday, state hospitals were treating 674 COVID-19 patients, the third highest since the pandemic began.

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The executive director of the Alabama Democratic Party on Friday called for the resignation of a Republican state representative over his support for the Confederacy, Confederate monuments and his membership in a local Sons of Confederate Veterans chapter. 

The Alabama Democratic Party — in a statement released Friday — said that Rep. Will Dismukes, R-Pratville, is receiving criticism for his support of the lost Confederate cause and “as elected officials of all stripes seek to move Alabama forward, Dismukes is stuck in the past.” 

“Rep. Dismukes, Chaplain of the ‘Prattville Dragoons: Sons of Confederate Veterans,’” was recently praised in the group’s newsletter as being representative of the Confederacy’s ‘Godly heritage,'” the press release states.

“We need elected officials who work for a better tomorrow for all Alabamians,” said Wade Perry, executive director of Alabama Democratic Party, in a statement.  “That should go without saying. If little Will wants to play dress-up and pretend to fight for the lost cause, he should resign. His job is to pass laws that help Alabamians, not honor folks who fought to preserve the institution of slavery.”

In an interview on WVNN’s “The Jeff Poor Show,” Dismukes was critical of a recommendation by House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville, to stop using tax money to fund the Confederate Memorial Park in Chilton County.

The Alabama Historical Commission receives about $600,000 annually to run the park, according to Al.com. 

“I think he’s dead wrong. I don’t think it would be a wise decision for our state to move in that direction,” Dismukes said during the program, as quoted by Yellowhammer News.

In a Facebook post on June 14, Dismukes called for more funding for the Confederate Memorial Park.  “No chance we stop funding the State Park!!! This will not happen on my watch,” he wrote.

“We technically give a small portion of what is actually supposed to go towards the park. If anything we should give more to the park and ensure our history is preserved,” Dismukes wrote in the post. 

In an April 27 Facebook post, Dismukes refers to the Civil War as the “War of Northern Aggression.” In several other Facebook posts, he references and quotes the national motto of the failed Confederacy, “Deo Vindice.”

In another Facebook post, Dismukes is seen standing in front of a Confederate flag, wearing a shirt with a Confederate flag patch while celebrating “Confederate Flag Day.”

In the wake of the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, protests against police brutality have resulted in calls for policies to address systemic racism and for Confederate monuments to come down, and across the South and in Alabama many have already been removed. Monuments in Mobile, Birmingham and Montgomery have come down. 

The National Trust for Historic Preservation on Thursday released a statement calling for the removal of Confederate monuments, most of which the Washington D.C.-based nonprofit said “were intended to serve as a celebration of Lost Cause mythology and to advance the ideas of white supremacy.” 

“Many of them still stand as symbols of those ideologies and sometimes serve as rallying points for bigotry and hate today. To many African Americans, they continue to serve as constant and painful reminders that racism is embedded in American society,” the nonprofit said in a statement.

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Huntsville Chief of Police Mark McMurray told the Huntsville City Council on Thursday that his department’s response to protests earlier this month was meant to avoid violence and destruction of property that was anticipated based on intelligence reports and what was happening in other cities.

McMurray gave a detailed play-by-play of his decisions in a two-and-a-half-hour presentation that included social media posts by local “antifa sympathizers,” drone surveillance footage and explanations of the police gear and crowd dispersal weapons used.

Responding to residents’ comments about “our stormtrooper police officers,” McMurray said that he replaced uniformed street officers with the riot-gear-clad Mobile Field Force on June 1 as the day’s peaceful assembly got “more and more riotous.” It is at night, he said, that “spin off” groups of protesters tend to become violent.

“The reason they wear the hard shells on the outside of their uniform — they wear plastic protective gear — is for their defense. It’s not offense,” he said. “It’s to keep them from being injured by things thrown at them in a disorderly conduct type situation.”

[A video of the city council meeting is available here.]

Huntsville police didn’t use the riot shields that were seen carried by other officers because those are meant for hand-to-hand combat maneuvers, McMurray said. His strategy prioritized maintaining distance from protesters in order to use as little force as necessary, he said.

Although officers apprehended a man seen brandishing a pistol in the crowd, McMurray called the June 1 demonstration a “great event” that could have ended on a good note. He showed a list of violations police had witnessed, from people blocking sidewalks and roadways to using language considered to be inciting a riot. But it was the failure to disperse for 46 minutes after curfew that prompted police to deploy non-chemical gray smoke.

“It’s a smoke can, and our purpose was, let’s just see if that convinces them to leave. Let’s don’t put the CS [tear gas] on them first. Let’s just put some smoke. We’ll be gentle,” McMurray said.

Bottles were then thrown at officers, he said, so two cans of tear gas were deployed and the area was cleared of protesters.

With that experience fresh in memory, Huntsville police gathered an array of social media posts they deemed troubling, including some from people supposedly affiliated with the Antifa movement. McMurray said that in his time on the gang squad, he learned that gang members and wannabe gang members were equally dangerous.

McMurray identified some people as Antifa sympathizers by displaying slightly redacted social media pages. Some of those pages have already been called into question, and his assertions that some people shown were Antifa sympathizers have been denied, according to AL.com

“They’re defaming my character with absolutely no evidence in a live stream city council meeting with the vaguest attempt at hiding my identity but telling everybody what city I live in,” the man, Benjamin Shapiro, told AL.com. Shapriso denied being an anarchist, a member of antifa, an antifa sympathizer and said he never attended any protests.

“So what’s the difference between an Antifa and an Antifa sympathizer who wants to be recognized in the gang? In the group?” McMurray said. “You put the title on Antifa. I won’t.”

He said that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms provides intelligence on “all Antifa members” in the southeastern U.S. Antifa is short for anti-fascist, he said, and defined it as “a loose collection of groups, networks and individuals who believe in active, aggressive opposition to far-right-wing movements.” It comes from the anarchist movement, he said.

Demonstrators describe police action at Huntsville protest

Read accounts of the protest from demonstrators — in their own words.

Members can be identified by a host of symbols worn as patches or appearing on their social media pages, McMurray said, adding that liking one of their posts is enough to be tracked as an Antifa sympathizer.

The Antifa movement first appeared in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s in response to the rise of fascists there, according to the BBC. The American Antifa movement has been traced to the 1980s, when a group called Anti-Racist Action formed to confront skinheads who were growing in influence in the punk music scene. It began attracting adherents again with the political rise of President Donald Trump and the alt-right.

The department was joined on June 3 by State Troopers and Madison County Sheriff’s Deputies. McMurray said he called in the State Troopers to protect against property damage to downtown Huntsville’s “valuable assets.”

The day’s events began amid heightened concern by police about an “organized Antifa-like effort” based on various social media posts, including a diagram titled “Protest Roles” that McMurray displayed. It shows positions and tasks for protesters to take in a confrontation with police. It includes forming a makeshift shield line, filming police actions, placing medics for injuries and “range soldiers” who throw things when police advance.

McMurray said police identified 10 of the 13 roles on the diagram.

However, the diagram McMurray presented on Thursday has been connected to protests in Hong Kong. All the roles identified on the diagram were peaceful roles.

When crowds did not disperse on June 3, things escalated beyond what occurred two days prior. McMurray attributed that to the level of organization protesters brought this time, which he said indicated a desire for a fight. He noted the setting up of aid stations just beyond where the advancing police line halted. He said their purpose was to keep people in the fight.

“That means they watched our activity from Monday, and they’re using counter-intelligence, and they’re actually setting up their aid station just outside where they think our perimeter is going to stop,” he said. “Do you see how organized they are?”

Protesters who were there that day have denied the police chief’s claims.

After the police advance stopped, the crowd split into separate groups. In McMurray’s analysis, the situation — which he watched via drones overhead — presented a risk that his officers were vulnerable to a potential flanking maneuver as they advanced toward the Confederate monument ahead of them.

After commands to clear the area, which McMurray said were numerous but which many demonstrators said they didn’t hear, the crowd had not left and nightfall was approaching. That meant further action was necessary, McMurray said.

“You can’t avoid that decision when you’re coming up upon an hour and a half of noncompliance,” he said.

When objects were thrown at officers, police started firing bean bag rounds. Shot from orange shotguns, those are typically fired at the ground near people throwing objects in order to scare them. McMurray reiterated that dispersal agents are used “so we don’t touch you.”

Thirty bean bags were fired that night, he said. Five of them hit people. Huntsville police don’t have rubber bullets and did not use them, he said. The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency says State Troopers were only present as backup support and did not fire any dispersants. Yet some protesters displayed injuries they said were from rubber bullets. One woman had bleeding holes in her legs.

McMurray addressed the complaint that protesters were boxed in with nowhere to go because officers were blocking exits. That was due to a miscommunication between agencies, he said, and he cleared an exit when he found out.

Regarding the testimonies of dozens of residents at a previous meeting, he said that they weren’t lying but they did not have a full view of the events of that day. By sharing the perspective of his department, McMurray said he hoped to help everyone understand why police did what they did.

Council President Devyn Keith said that perspective was indeed the core issue. He acknowledged that patience was exhibited by law enforcement throughout the protests but told McMurray to consider the perspective of the people in the crowds he disbursed on June 3.

“Snipers,” Keith said. “Snipers on top of the courthouse. Those weren’t just snipers – UAV [unmanned aerial vehicles], barricades, bullet-proof vests, hardhats.”

The location of the protest was important to the context of what they experienced, he said. The county courthouse had been mentioned as the site of the protest several times during the meeting.

“Nobody cares about that ugly building,” Keith said. “It is a monument in the front that drew a crowd to converse about that monument, and that location became a synergy point.”

There were three law enforcement agencies seeing the protesters in different ways, he said. How and when they determined who their enemies were that night was when the rubber bullets came out.

Keith said that there will be people who “cry out in very uncomfortable and unfortunate ways” who need to be detained and held accountable.

“But in that way, as a police chief of the city of Huntsville, I urge you to be aware not only of your language and your stance, but that they’re not just looking at you – but that they’re also looking at snipers, they’re also looking at sheriffs. They’re also looking at State Troopers,” Keith said.

Thanking McMurray for his presentation, Keith said he wished there was a presentation by all three agencies.

Councilman Bill Kling said that residents’ complaints about lack of transparency could be addressed by better communication between police and residents.

Keith called for an anonymous online portal for officers and residents to report police misconduct.

The council tabled two resolutions that would call for a review of the protests by the Huntsville Police Citizens Advisory Council. Those will be considered at the regular City Council meeting next Thursday.

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