Nearly a year after a grand jury said the Hanceville Police Department had become a “criminal enterprise” and urged that it be “immediately abolished,” city leaders have now done exactly that, voting this week to dissolve the department and shut down the municipal court that depended on its cases.
On Thursday night, the Hanceville City Council voted 4–1 to formally abolish the police department and the city’s municipal court, while also installing Nolan Bradford as mayor in a move that marks the most dramatic break yet from a scandal that has dominated local politics for more than a year. The Cullman County Sheriff’s Office, which has already been handling calls in the city since the department’s troubles exploded into public view, will continue to provide law enforcement coverage under a contract the city is still negotiating.
Thursday’s vote came almost exactly one year after a Cullman County grand jury indicted Hanceville Police Chief Jason Marlin and four officers on a range of charges tied to mishandled drugs and evidence, then issued an extraordinary recommendation that the department itself be dismantled. In a scathing report, jurors said the small-city department had a “rampant culture of corruption,” operated “as more of a criminal enterprise than a law enforcement agency” and posed a “particular and ongoing threat to public safety.”
Prosecutors and investigators described an evidence room so unsecured that a hole in the wall and a green broomstick were used to pry open the door, and said lax controls may have contributed to the 2024 on-duty death of a dispatcher who was found dead at work from a suspected drug overdose after having access to the room. Within days of the indictments, Hanceville’s mayor placed the entire department on administrative leave and asked Sheriff Matt Gentry’s office to take over answering calls for service inside the city limits.
What began as an emergency takeover by the sheriff’s office has now effectively become permanent, at least for the foreseeable future. Sheriff’s deputies have been handling patrols, traffic stops and arrests in Hanceville under an arrangement similar to contracts the county already has with other small municipalities, with the city reimbursing the county for additional deputy time.
