DECATUR, Ala. — The Decatur City Council meeting on July 7 was the first time the public had a chance to address their local representatives since pen was put to paper on the third-party review of the Decatur police department. To the community advocates who regularly attend and contribute to these meetings, it's one of the biggest steps forward in the pursuit of justice for Steve Perkins.
"We're working together and together we're going to get it done," said Rodney Gordon, the president of the Morgan County NAACP.
"For the community, it's important that we can have someone come in and get real information on how our police department functions with their behavior, their culture," said Aneesah Lige, co-founder of Standing in Power. "That's important, especially after the last nine months with the citizens have had to deal with."
Decatur City Council president Jacob Ladner said he will give any updates on the review that he's legally allowed to share.
"When it's all over, they're going to produce a final report that'll be very lengthy. It will have to be looked at by legal, anything that we're allowed by law to give to the public, we will," said Ladner.
Transparency in whatever kind of review of the Decatur Police Department has long been part of Decatur residents' demands. Not only will Green Research & Technology occasionally report back to Decatur City Council, but they will speak with members of the Decatur community who've emerged as prominent voices in the justice for Steve Perkins movement.
"And we will be informed. That's a part of the process, that we be informed," said Gordon. "We want to know what's going on. We want to go step by step. I mean, any way we can help this thing, we're going to do it."
"With them, being able to provide that information is a form of transparency, which is what we've been asking for. And so we're grateful for that," Lige added.
You can read the Master Services Agreement between the City of Decatur and Green Research & Technology here.
While community advocates are pleased with the review, their work is far from over. Attention has turned to continuing to question the City of Decatur and the Decatur Police Department's ability to investigate the newly retired DPD lieutenant Joe Renshaw, the man who had numerous formal complaints against him for his use of force while on patrol. Notably, Renshaw apprehended Catrela Perkins, the widow of Steve, during a Third Friday public gathering in April, 2024. During the gag order hearing for Mac Marquette in May, Renshaw admitted to using a fake Facebook account to harass Decatur residents online. The following week, Ladner made the announcement of a third-party review.
"They shouldn't be able to just retire. They should have some disciplinary action that the community should have been told about because what keeps them from going somewhere else, getting hired and doing it to someone else," said Lige. "Renshaw is not a good cop and what he did on Third Friday showed that."
It's not publicly known if Renshaw was facing any internal investigation by DPD for any of his litany of actions. Ladner says he "understand[s] the concern and the thought" about Renshaw springing a retirement while these questions loom, but he wants to dispel the notion that Decatur city government at-large or the City Council, specifically, had any involvement in Renshaw's retirement.
"We don't have any control over that," said Ladner. "When someone is eligible to retire, they can apply directly through [the Retirement Systems of Alabama], an RSA based on the termination of a city, actually, by law, can't interfere in any of that."
Decatur City Council meets again on Monday July 15th at 10 am. Also added to the schedule is a personnel board hearing, set for Thursday July 25th at fort Decatur recreational center at 8:30 am.