The town of Brookside, Alabama holds municipal court once a month. The courtroom and the parking lot are packed with people. Police must direct traffic before the 1 p.m. court session starts. (Joe Songer for AL.com).Joe Songer
Michelle Jones made an official complaint to the Alabama Attorney’s General’s office three years ago, arguing that Brookside police stopped her out of jurisdiction, issued a bogus citation and threatened her with more charges after she criticized them on Facebook.
She thought the complaint was long forgotten or closed.
But on Wednesday morning, she said, she got a call from the Alabama Attorney General’s investigator who had worked the case after her complaint was filed in 2019,
“He informed me that my case was never closed,” said Jones, who lives in Forestdale near Birmingham.
In 2020, she had explained her case this way to the AG’s office: “The person threatened me with an arrest if I did not take down my Facebook pictures and posts of their police officers, stop sending emails to the local politicians, as well as others, and show them (Brookside police) that I understand law enforcement practices.”
Jones is not alone in complaining about Brookside. Stories from people stopped in the ticket-happy town continue to roll down like an avalanche, since AL.com last week published the story of how the tiny town turned to aggressive ticketing to build a ballooning police force that came to provide half the town’s revenue.
Police Chief Mike Jones has since resigned, Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth has requested an audit of Brookside’s town and police force, and lawmakers across party lines have called for bills to help curb small-town policing for profit on Alabama Interstates.
The accounts told to AL.com detail harassment and intimidation. They tell, with consistency, of specious tickets and arrests, of retaliation by a police department and by a chief who challenged those who questioned him as he sought to build an empire on the backs of drivers.
Michelle Jones, of Forestdale, has fought the Brookside police department for three years.
Stephanie Franklin, a Jefferson County employee, told AL.com she was a passenger in a car stopped last year for an expired tag. She said she tried to record the interaction after three officers in two vehicles pulled her car over, but an officer with a “valknot” symbol – a Norse sign sometimes appropriated by white supremacists – on a ring and one of his gun clips confiscated her phone.
“The officer said ‘We have had people stop and record us,” she said, “like it explained his actions.”
Franklin said she believes the only reason she wasn’t arrested was because she works for Jefferson County. Others weren’t so fortunate.
Another woman, Emily Sierra, emailed AL.com to say she was pulled over in Brookside three years ago for a single flash of her lights to warn oncoming traffic about a speed trap.
“There were two cars and one SUV that surrounded my car and police were everywhere,” she wrote. “They gave me a ticket for running a stop sign. I clearly did not run the stop sign as I had just seen them sitting on top of I-22 overpass. I have never been in any trouble – only had one speeding ticket. They were shining these flashlights in my car and it was daylight. I was scared to death even though I was doing nothing wrong.”
Neither the police nor the town have responded to questions since the original story ran.
For Michelle Jones, it has been a dedicated three-year fight. Brookside police gave her a ticket in May of 2019 for running a stop sign at Roberta Road and Cherry Avenue across I-22 from Brookside. She insists – like many others stopped by Brookside police – that she did not run the stop sign at all. Jones says she was polite to the officer, but was convinced the ticket was unfounded and given outside the Brookside police jurisdiction.
She set out to challenge it. But not in the courtroom. She paid the $160 ticket and began to make her case through emails to public officials, complaints, a television interview and elsewhere. She complained directly to then-Brookside Police Chief Mike Jones.
In an email to her May 29, 2019, Mike Jones defended the stop, and the ability to ticket outside of Brookside.
“A Peace Officer sworn in the State of Alabama can enforce the law anywhere in the State of Alabama,” he wrote in an email. “They are sworn Law Enforcement Officers certified by the Alabama Peace Officers Standards Training (sic) Commission. Arrest powers are not confined to city limits or jurisdictional boundaries except within the State of Alabama.”
The real trouble for Michelle Jones began as she started posting on her Facebook page when she saw Brookside police stopping people in places she thought were out of bounds.
“Police Trap,” she posted in June of 2019. “Brookside Police Department of Brookside, AL spotted in the Jefferson County Sheriff Department District at Roberta Road and Cherry Avenue.”
And in July, “Brookside Police Department of Brookside, AL operating outside its city limits. This is at the corner of Roberta Road and Mulberry Road, which is far away from their city limits.”
What happened next was shocking to her.
On July 10th, 2019, 16 days after she paid her ticket, her phone rang. On the other end was a caller ID’d as coming from the Brookside Town Hall, she said. The caller identified himself as a “Det. Johnson,” though it is unclear if Brookside had a Detective Johnson.
He told her she was a wanted woman.
She spelled it out in her complaint to the AG’s office – and in notes to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, county commissioners and others.
“Detective Johnson had called and asked that I come to the Brookside Police Department to talk to them. After I told him that I would not, he reported that they have two warrants for my arrest. He stated that I issued threats, incited a riot, and slandered the Brookside Police Department in my Facebook posts. He reported that his Police Chief was mad.”
An investigator with the AG responded to her, and she spelled it out again in 2020.
The AG’s office this week would not confirm or deny to AL.com the existence of any case involving Brookside.
In his call to Jones this week, the investigator said “he could not tell me anything because of the ongoing investigation,” Jones said.
In Brookside, complaints about retaliation have come time and time again, as in the case of Rev. Vincent Witt and his sister, Tareya, who said the small police department fabricated charges against them and listed them as fugitives because Witt complained about an officer’s racist remark.
Even the claims of retaliation for social media posts are not unusual in Brookside.
Alabama Senate candidate Lisa Ward said ex-Chief Jones tried to intimidate her in a social media message after she shared the AL.com story on Facebook.
And a Brookside man told AL.com police in the town pulled him over with blue lights and told him there would be consequences if he posted more about the police on Facebook.
The man is still afraid of retaliation, and asked for anonymity. He said police accused him of running a stop sign “that I never did run,” and he complained about it on Facebook. Two or three days later Brookside police stopped him again.
Not for speeding, or running a stop sign, or any violation. But for this:
The officer said “‘the chief’s pretty upset about that post you put on Facebook.’” the Brookside man told AL.com. The officer went on to say “‘any more backlash like that towards his police department and it’ll be far worse than a ticket.”
“I just stared at him,” the man said. “I was just looking at him like, so this is what this stop is about?”
“I was in pure shock,” he told AL.com.
The accounts of drivers – dozens of them – are strikingly similar. They often say they had no idea why they were pulled over while passing near Brookside on Interstate 22. Time after time they say they were pulled over by multiple officers in multiple vehicles for minor charges such as expired tag or following too closely, that they were searched, towed, and forced to pay large fines for violations many say they did not commit.
Michelle Jones said she has had friends, acquaintances and family members stopped in Brookside. She has watched and documented stops there.
“What I noticed the pattern to be among us is this: If you are in the car by yourself, you’re gonna get a ticket,” she said. “If you have a witness with you, they’re gonna issue you a warning.”
She didn’t think it was fair.
“I felt that basically, that this was a way for them to make money to fund their city off the backs of citizens from other areas. And so that’s why I decided to fight.”
Read more stories from our Banking on Crime series:
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