Alabama
Alabama Plans to Carry Out the First Execution Using Nitrogen Gas. A Lot Could Go Wrong.
The first time Jeff Rieber said goodbye to his longtime friend Kenneth Eugene Smith, the two men hugged and cried, their embrace inhibited by Smith’s handcuffs. The pair had spent roughly 30 years together on Alabama’s death row at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, first bonding over their interest in the law and love of rock ‘n’ roll, then learning each other’s secrets and weaknesses and sharing the connection that came with witnessing more than 50 of their neighbors taken to the death chamber. But friends on the row came with an expiration date, and Smith’s had arrived.
As Smith’s execution began that evening in November 2022, the building shook as Rieber and his neighbors banged on the steel doors of their cells, a tradition meant to show solidarity. It usually took a while for news of an execution’s outcome to reach death row. Sometimes that came in the form of watching a body being loaded into a coroner’s vehicle. Smith, however, left the death chamber alive. Officials had called off his execution.
“I was blown away,” Rieber told The Intercept in a telephone interview. The celebration that erupted on death row soon turned to anger as they learned that executioners had stuck Smith with needles for two hours as they tried, and failed, to establish IV access to deliver lethal drugs. Smith was the second person in Alabama that year, and the third in four years, to survive execution because of problems finding a vein. Smith is “universally loved” on death row, Rieber said, and his neighbors were upset about what happened. “There was a lot of anger, a lot of unrest, a lot of tension. And the tension is building again.”
Alabama is slated to execute Smith on January 25. This time, the state is planning to suffocate him with nitrogen gas, an untested method that has never been used in an execution. Experts retained by Smith’s lawyers have warned that Alabama’s protocol could cause Smith to suffer a stroke, choke to death on vomit, or be left in a vegetative state.
The Alabama Department of Corrections, or ADOC, is planning to administer the gas through a hose hooked up to a respirator mask, but the state has kept many of the specifics a secret. “Within seconds, Smith will have no available oxygen to breathe inside the mask,” a court document filed last month by the office of Attorney General Steve Marshall stated. “That will render him unconscious and cause death.”
“Alabama has chosen to pick somebody they just tortured to use as a guinea pig for a brand-new method.”
In the face of the unknown, the state has offered little scientific evidence or expertise to assuage concerns, primarily relying on internal tests to ensure the system will work as planned. Smith’s lawyers, who are challenging the execution method, have accused the department of flouting safety guidelines and ignoring warnings from an expert in assisted suicide about the unreliability of the equipment they intend to use. In depositions, ADOC officials have acknowledged foregoing medical advice that could protect against problems arising during the execution.
Rieber likened Smith’s execution to a science experiment. “Alabama has chosen to pick somebody they just tortured to use as a guinea pig for a brand-new method because the one they used before didn’t work,” he said.
Smith was sentenced to death for his role in a 1988 murder-for-hire plot. Charles Sennett, a minister in the Church of Christ, recruited Smith and John Forrest Parker to kill his wife, Elizabeth, at their home in northwestern Alabama. The pair were paid $900 each, court documents show. Sennett died by suicide a week after the killing. Parker was sentenced to death and executed in 2010.
Smith was convicted of capital murder in 1989, but the courts ordered that his case be retried because the prosecution had illegally struck Black jurors. At his second trial, in 1996, the jury voted 11-1 to spare Smith’s life and sentence him to life without parole. Because judicial override was legal in Alabama until 2017, however, the judge was able to quash the jury’s recommendation and sentence him to death.
Alabama’s first attempt to carry out Smith’s death sentence was part of a string of botched executions in the state. Executioners jabbed needles in Smith’s arms and hands, according to a filing by his lawyers, then tilted the gurney in an “inverse crucifixion position.” They injected him with an “unknown substance” believed to be a sedative or anesthetic, the lawyers wrote, arguing that the execution subjected Smith to cruel and unusual punishment. The state denied placing Smith in this position or administering a sedative, which would run afoul of official policy. An executioner proceeded to use a large needle to try to establish IV access in Smith’s collarbone. The experience left Smith with “severe physical pain and emotional trauma,” he wrote in an affidavit.
Alabama lawmakers authorized nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method in 2018 after legal challenges alleging that condemned people had remained awake during painful lethal injections held up the state’s ability to carry out death sentences. The move followed the passage of similar bills in Oklahoma and Mississippi. Former Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian asked his legislature to adopt the method after watching the BBC documentary “How to Kill a Human Being,” which followed a British Parliament member-turned-journalist in his search for the perfect execution method. “It’s foolproof,” Christian said of nitrogen hypoxia.
The method works by depriving the brain of oxygen and replacing it with nitrogen, an odorless gas that makes up 78 percent of the earth’s atmosphere but is lethal when inhaled on its own. Nitrogen poisoning has killed nearly 100 people since 1992 in accidents at industrial plants, laboratories, and medical facilities. Since introducing nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method, however, neither Oklahoma nor Mississippi has come up with a way to carry it out. Oklahoma has reverted to lethal injection.
ADOC released a heavily redacted protocol last summer that detailed how it would carry out Smith’s execution.
The execution team will strap the mask on Smith’s face and monitor his oxygen levels with a pulse oximeter. Smith will pray and deliver his final statement with the mask on, according to the protocol. Officials then plan to administer nitrogen gas for either 15 minutes or five minutes after a flat line shows that Smith’s heart has stopped beating.
Not much is known about the architects of ADOC’s plans. Officials have been tight-lipped about the manufacturer of the system, making it difficult to evaluate its efficacy. They have also kept the nitrogen supplier a secret, although the gas is widely available for purchase. The state has entered into publicly available contracts with just two companies related to the use of nitrogen gas, and both have denied creating the protocol.
In 2019, officials hired FDR Safety, a workplace safety consultancy in Tennessee, to “research process methods,” “conduct task-based risk assessment,” “develop job instructions including safety requirements,” and “conduct hazard communication training.” The company terminated its contract in 2022 after pressure from anti-death penalty activists. Alabama refused to disclose its contract with FDR Safety or any reports the company drafted. Chief Operating Officer Steve Hawkins has maintained that his employees did not work on the execution protocol.
“The work that FDR Safety performed was limited to protecting the health and safety of the guards who work for the Alabama Department of Corrections,” Hawkins said in a statement at the time. “It was in no way associated directly with the protocols used to administer capital punishment.
Officials also tapped Daniel Buffington, a Florida pharmacist and founder of the drug consulting firm Clinical Pharmacology Services, to consult on nitrogen gas. An investigation we conducted for ProPublica found that Buffington made at least $354,000 testifying in favor of states’ lethal injection protocols between 2015 and 2023 and that his testimony “seemed to be exaggerating or misrepresenting the scope of what he could do as a licensed pharmacist.” (Buffington contested the investigation’s findings.)
In a 2022 interview, Buffington told us that he was asked by Alabama to answer questions “for a very brief period of time … about the pharmacology of the substances.” He said he did not perform any work on the state’s protocol.
The attorney general’s office and ADOC did not respond to questions from The Intercept about the development of the execution protocol.
As director of the assisted suicide organization Exit International, retired physician Philip Nitschke has spent more than two decades developing expertise in elective death procedures via lethal drugs, poisons, and gases like nitrogen, earning him the moniker “Dr. Death.”
Nitschke recently developed a euthanasia pod, an enclosed device that fills with nitrogen with the push of a button. But the way Alabama planned to conduct its nitrogen executions alarmed him. His work in the assisted suicide movement taught him that masks were ineffective, he said, because they failed to protect against leaks that could introduce outside oxygen. It was his opinion that the execution method would not bring about a “peaceful, reliable death.”
Facial hair could break the mask’s seal, Nitschke said, prolonging the process of dying even when people were fully cooperative. In other instances, facial muscles relaxed once unconsciousness kicked in, loosening the mask. In Alabama, Nitschke warned, these problems could prohibit enough nitrogen from reaching Smith and leave him in a vegetative state with permanent brain damage.
“Problems of mask fit, facial hair, and dynamic changes associated with alteration of the user’s facial and or muscle tone (as consciousness is lost or the person speaks) have been found to be unsolvable,” Nitschke, whom Smith’s team retained as an expert witness, wrote in a November court declaration. “The smallest air leak greatly increases the time to loss of consciousness and uncertainty regarding the outcome.”
Officials have dismissed those concerns. ADOC Commissioner John Hamm testified in a December deposition that he wasn’t aware that the mask needed to be airtight, a claim that Smith’s lawyers say contradicts the user manual.
Another doctor retained by Smith’s legal team warned that oxygen leaking into the mask could cause Smith to suffer a stroke or be left brain dead, which the state rejected as speculative. The doctor also said that Smith might vomit inside the mask, causing him to die by choking. Hamm said that his team considered that possibility but did not seek medical advice to mitigate the risk and will not intervene if Smith vomits once nitrogen starts flowing.
“If the person vomits while the nitrogen is engaged, we know that we cannot remove that mask,” ADOC Regional Director Cynthia Stewart confirmed in a December deposition.
“So you just let them sit there with the vomit in the mask?” Smith’s lawyer asked.
“They won’t know,” she replied. “They will be unconscious and probably deceased.”
Public documents show that officials have relied on state employees to conduct tests to ensure the protocol will work as intended.
After Nitschke laid out his initial concerns about Alabama’s protocol, Stewart wrote in an affidavit that she had “observed multiple persons wearing the mask with supplied breathing air, and none have reported any problems breathing.” She added, “I have also worn the mask under these conditions, and I was able to breathe comfortably.”
But the circumstances Stewart described would be drastically different than those during an execution, Smith’s lawyers argued, because the employees were breathing oxygen rather than nitrogen and were not experiencing the feelings associated with being executed. “Defendants’ evidence amounts to nothing more than their assurances that nothing will go wrong,” they wrote.
In an experiment conducted in August, ADOC officials placed the mask on top of sheets and a towel, according to a brief submitted by Smith’s legal team in December. An oxygen monitor was positioned beneath the mask to “document how quickly the oxygen decreased in the mask after the introduction of nitrogen,” a relevant metric to determine how quickly someone might become unconscious.
Dr. Joseph Antognini, a retired anesthesiologist who regularly testifies on behalf of states defending new execution methods, observed this demonstration and evaluated the nitrogen system at Holman. Antognini “did not find any issues related to how the air and nitrogen will be delivered,” Smith’s lawyers wrote, but he had limited experience administering gasses through a mask and did not evaluate how the mask would fit on Smith.
“I think that the trials effectively show very little at all, and I wouldn’t be drawing too much comfort from it.”
Nitschke said his fears about Alabama’s new method were confirmed when Smith’s lawyers invited him to Holman last month to evaluate the system for himself.
He was given the chance to replicate Smith’s experience up until the introduction of nitrogen. After climbing onto the execution gurney and having the mask strapped onto his head, it filled with oxygen, he told The Intercept. Nitschke discovered that by simply straining his jaw, he could displace the mask’s straps, a feature he said could introduce an oxygen leak.
Nitschke also said he was shown about a half dozen videos of tests that Alabama had conducted on the mask. He remained unconvinced that the execution would proceed as planned.
“I think that the trials effectively show very little at all, and I wouldn’t be drawing too much comfort from it,” he said. Referring to state officials, he added, “I’m surprised that they provide them with much comfort.”
Smith’s lawyers are continuing to challenge the state’s use of nitrogen hypoxia in the courts. Last week, they filed an appeal with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after a lower court judge rejected Smith’s claims that he had been unfairly singled out for execution and the method violated his constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. Meanwhile, they asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay to review whether it’s constitutional for officials to try to execute Smith twice. “It will be only the second time in U.S. history that a state follows through with a second execution attempt after a previous, failed attempt,” the lawyers wrote.
Smith’s legal team is also urging Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to halt Smith’s execution because of proposed legislation that would give people sentenced to death by judicial override a chance at resentencing. As governor, Ivey has the power to grant Smith clemency. Since taking office in 2017, however, she has overseen 13 executions and rejected all clemency applications submitted by people on death row, including Smith’s.
In an emailed statement to The Intercept on Monday, Ivey said that the current law on judicial override “honors the promises made to the family members of capital murder victims who have long waited for closure and justice.” She was optimistic about Alabama becoming the first state to carry out an execution with nitrogen. “This method has been thoroughly vetted,” she said. “I am confident we are ready to move forward.”
Smith has been nauseous and vomiting, according to a medical report filed by his lawyers. Doctors have prescribed him an anti-nausea medication. A judge on Monday refused to consider how that would weigh on his execution.
If the courts greenlight Smith’s execution, Smith’s spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeff Hood, will be present in the execution chamber. Hood invited the governor to join him, he said, but has not received a response.
Rieber plans to do what he always does. He’ll join others on death row in beating on the doors around 6 p.m., then try not to pay attention to the clock. It’s customary for people scheduled for execution to give away their belongings. Smith, an artist, gave Rieber two paintings. One, of a red betta fish, Smith painted recently. The other, of puppies, Smith made in the 1990s, when the two men first became friends. The paintings hang opposite one another in Rieber’s cell, an arrangement he hopes will protect them from fading in the sun.
Rieber knows his opinion of Alabama’s turn to nitrogen gas might ring hollow because he’s on death row for killing someone himself. But he shared it anyway. “Every time there’s a change in method, it’s always supposed to be a more humane method,” he said. “We’re waiting for people to understand that it’s not the method that’s humane or inhumane. It’s the killing of other citizens.”
“There’s not a method they can come up with that’s going to make people happy and content with killing.”
This story was supported by a grant from Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights, in conjunction with Arnold Ventures.
Alabama
After 7 years, the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame restarts its Saturday music lessons
After a seven-year hiatus, Saturday morning music lessons have returned to the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame.
The Birmingham music hall and arts nonprofit has restarted Saturday Jazz Greats, its longtime tuition-free music education program.
The Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, housed in the historic Carver Theatre, started the program in 1999. Each Saturday, professional jazz musicians convened at the Carver to teach students beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels of music including instrumental instruction, music theory, jazz history, and jazz improvisation. Over the years, program instructors included Dr. Frank Adams and Dr. Tolton Rosser.
[READ MORE: ‘He taught me patience’: Alabama jazz musician Dr. Tolton Rosser remembered as stern but compassionate]
The Hall of Fame paused the Saturday Jazz Greats program shortly after the Carver Theatre, located at 1631 4th Ave. North in downtown Birmingham, closed for renovations in 2017. While the Carver Theatre’s lobby and performance hall reopened in 2022, the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame museum, located on the second floor, and the Jazz Hall Radio studio in the basement remained closed for upgrades and new installations. The Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame museum officially opened on Aug. 6.
The Saturday Jazz Greats program resumed last month, and the Jazz Hall of Fame will continue to accept students on a rolling basis. This year, the program is admitting students in grades 3 to 12. Prospective students must complete a registration form and pay a $75 registration fee. Classes run from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
While students pay a registration fee for Saturday Jazz Greats, the classes in the weekly program are free. According to information on the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame website, the nonprofit has secured a grant for the Saturday program. Thanks to the grant, 50 students will receive a $50 discount on the registration fee.
The fall 2024 Saturday Jazz Greats semester will conclude in December with a finale concert. Registration for the program will begin again in the spring.
The Jazz Hall of Fame appointed trumpeter and bandleader Daniel Jose Carr to direct the Saturday Jazz Greats program. Carr, a celebrated educator who also leads the city’s longest-running jazz jam session, has assembled a team of musicians and longtime instructors from around the state. Bernard McQueen, a member of Carr’s quartet, will teach electric and upright bass. Miles College professor Daniel Harper, who instructed classes at the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame for nearly a decade, will return to teach trumpet and piano. Renowned singer and pianist Terry Harper will instruct jazz vocals and piano. Carlos Pino, an adjunct professor at UAB, will teach guitar. Arnold Montgomery will lead lessons for students learning the saxophone. Jazz drummer John Nuckols will lead sessions on percussion.
[READ MORE: ‘So You Say You Play Jazz?’: New documentary tells the story of Daniel José Carr, Birmingham jazz history]
Students who join the program will receive an evaluation from instructors to assess their skill levels and musical needs.
Dr. Leah Tucker, the executive director of the Jazz Hall of Fame, gave students a warm welcome on the program’s reopening day.
“Learning is fun and when you start playing jazz, you’re going to feel a whole different spirit to yourself. It’s music that uplifts you. It’s very happy. And it’s very creative,” said Tucker as she addressed the students onstage in the Carver Theatre performance hall. “You can be able to do your own thing, which is called improvising. So you’re going to learn all these things. You’re going to learn how to read music if you don’t know how. And you’re going to learn how to work as a group when you come together for the band.”
For Tucker, fond memories of the nonprofit’s education programs were a guiding light while the Carver Theatre was closed for seven years.
On Aug. 3, the music hall hosted a grand reopening celebration. Dubbed “A Cool Jazz Afternoon,” the party also marked a commemorative occasion – iconic bassist Ron Carter’s induction into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame.
During her welcome remarks that afternoon, Tucker recalled looking at folders filled with hundreds of registration forms from students who had taken classes over the decades.
“When I started looking through all the different books, there were hundreds and hundreds of names of students we have educated,” said Tucker. “So I know that jazz will not just fade into the past.”
[READ MORE: Iconic bassist Ron Carter inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame]
She also shared success stories from the program. One student, a flutist, toured with Lizzo and played the Hollywood Bowl. Another student now studies jazz under Rodney Whitaker, the director of jazz studies at Michigan State University.
“That’s what we do,” said Tucker as the audience erupted into applause. “We educate these young people so they can keep this art form alive and well.”
The Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Aug. 6 to celebrate the reopening of its museum and gallery.
The newly renovated Alabama Jazz Hall Museum features artifacts and updated exhibits dedicated to several Alabama Jazz Hall inductees including Dinah Washington, Harry Belafonte and Sun Ra. The exhibits will eventually include interactive touch screens with biographies of the inductees. In 2017, the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame purchased its jazz radio station from Samford University. With full programming control of the station, the nonprofit is also expanding its roster of shows on Jazz Hall Radio. In September, the Jazz Hall added Shure Shot Jazz. Hosted by vinyl deejays Suaze and DJ Rahdu, the weekly show fuses jazz and hip-hop culture.
Student jazz program affiliated with Excelsior Band holding open house
Mobile’s big-band tradition lives on, in an unlikely venue at the water’s edge
Alabama
Local sheriff asks FBI to investigate death of Black man found hanging in Alabama
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The FBI is investigating the death of a Black man in Alabama, who was found hanging in an abandoned house, following a request from a local sheriff amid fears among community members who accuse local law enforcement of longstanding, unchecked misconduct.
Sheriff’s deputies found Dennoriss Richardson, 39, in September in a rural part of Colbert County, miles away from his home in Sheffield, a city of approximately 10,000 people near the Tennessee River.
The Colbert County Sheriff’s Office ruled Richardson’s death a suicide. But Richardson’s wife, Leigh Richardson, has said that is not true, explaining her husband did not leave a note and had no connection to the house where he was found.
Instead, the 40-year-old fears her husband’s death was related to a lawsuit he filed against the local police department in February. Dennoriss Richardson, who coached kids in baseball and football, had alleged he was assaulted, denied medical attention, sprayed with tear gas and shocked with a Taser while in jail.
Leigh Richardson said she is not accusing a specific person but is adamant her husband didn’t kill himself.
She is not alone in her belief. Widespread skepticism about Richardson’s death underscores deep-seated distrust of local law enforcement in Colbert County. In a region where hanging invokes a long history of state-sanctioned lynchings for Black people, residents in the county allege a pattern of excessive force among local law enforcement.
Sheriff Eric Balentine, who confirmed the FBI accepted his request to investigate, said his department “exhausted all resources” in its investigation.
“We feel confident in what our findings were, but we feel like by doing this we can give the family more peace of mind,” Balentine said.
A spokesperson for the FBI’s field office in Birmingham confirmed the FBI is aware of Dennoriss Richardson’s death and is reviewing the allegations of criminal misconduct.
Tori Bailey, the president of the local NAACP chapter and the only Black member of the six-person county commission in Colbert County, said the community’s reaction to Richardson’s death was partially informed by the region’s harrowing history with lynchings.
In Alabama, there were 359 reported lynchings between 1877 and 1943, according to the Equal Justice Initiative, a criminal justice reform nonprofit. In Colbert County alone, there were 11.
Bailey said, although there may be nothing to these accusations, it makes sense the community would have a “visceral” reaction to a Black man hanging and want a more thorough investigation. She said while some officers are trying to do the right thing, in her 12 years as NAACP president she has documented and investigated many cases of excessive force in the county.
“There has long been a kind of disconnect between communities of color and law enforcement. Unfortunately, many of us do not feel that law enforcement is actually there to serve and protect,” Bailey said.
Marvin Long, a 57-year-old Black man and lifelong Colbert County resident, knew Dennoriss Richardson’s family well growing up. He shares the skepticism about the suicide ruling and said Richardson’s death has intensified his fear of retaliation.
“To this day I hate seeing a police car,” Long said. “I’m still more afraid now than ever.”
Long sued the Sheffield Police department last year. After he inquired about an unrelated arrest taking place just outside his property in 2021, body camera footage appears to show officers following Long to his house, dragging him down his porch steps and siccing the police K9 on him as he screams for help. Long was unarmed, according to the complaint.
Richardson and Long are among five Black and Latino men represented by civil rights attorney Roderick Van Daniel who have filed lawsuits against the department in recent years.
“Citizens are living in fear of retaliation,” Van Daniel said.
In one case, an off-duty Sheffield police officer was caught on surveillance footage punching and pulling a gun on a Black man at a liquor store. The officer was later convicted of assault and menacing and reckless endangerment. He was fired from the department.
In a separate lawsuit, a 57-year-old chiropractor claims he was shocked with a Taser 18 times while in handcuffs after he asked an officer to help him find his wife’s iPhone. Photos included in the suit show several large burn marks allegedly from the assault.
The Sheffield Police Department did not respond to numerous phone calls and emails seeking comment. Lawyers for the officers named in pending lawsuits did not respond to emails.
Balentine, the sheriff since 2023, declined to comment on specific cases. But he said that based on his almost 30 years as an officer in the area, he thought residents in Colbert County generally trusted law enforcement.
“If it’s proven that it was excessive, then I’m sure that there will be accountability,” he said.
Still, Balentine said he hoped the FBI investigation would help assuage concerns.
“Transparency is always a good way to mend some fences with the community,” he said.
Leigh Richardson had known her husband since he was 17. She remembers Dennoriss, known affectionately as “Na-Na,” as a warm father to their five children. But she also said his fear of the police was not new.
“He was scared at that young age,” Richardson said.
Richardson said that after filing the lawsuit her husband was frequently stopped by police. In those months, he was “trying to stay out of the way,” she said.
Sheffield Mayor Steve Stanley said Dennoriss Richardson had come to his office at least once to express concerns that he was being profiled. Stanley said he assured Richardson that any officers reported through official channels would be investigated.
The Sheffield Police Department did not confirm whether or how frequently the department pulled over Richardson.
Court records show Dennoriss Richardson had a long history of run-ins with local law enforcement, but the majority of the charges in federal and state courts did not stick.
Dennoriss Richardson pleaded guilty to drug possession in 2006 and was sentenced to five years in prison. In more than 15 years since then, court records show Richardson was arrested at least six additional times by the Sheffield Police Department, for charges ranging from disorderly conduct to robbery to assault.
None of those charges, except for a traffic violation for expired tags, resulted in a conviction, according to available court records.
In the same week that Richardson filed his lawsuit against the department, he was charged with trafficking meth. He had been arrested in a house where drugs allegedly were found. Richardson was out on bond when he died.
Stanley said he firmly supports holding officers accountable for misconduct but emphasized his overwhelming confidence in them.
“I have preached and believe that the majority of officers, at least, recognize that everybody deserves respect,” Stanley said.
Still, amid the looming investigation, uncertainty in the community prevails.
In early October, Richardson’s friends and family filled the pews of the small Trinity Memorial Funeral Home to commemorate his life. The singing and sermons were punctuated by calls for justice.
At the pulpit, Van Daniel, Richardson’s attorney, said Richardson “believed in transparency and accountability. He stood up against police misconduct.”
There was a steady chorus of “amens” from the crowd as Van Daniel spoke.
“His family and the Sheffield community deserve answers,” he said. “We deserve answers.”
___
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.
___
Riddle is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Alabama
Who Are Alabama’s Best 10 Football Players on The Joe Gaither Show
Let’s have a bye week Football Friday on “The Joe Gaither Show on BamaCentral” as we help you get through a bit of a slower week. Mason Woods joins the program to help look at a summer list we threw together as we named the top 10 football players on the Crimson Tide.
How many players in the summer list have lived up to expectations? We identify four players that haven’t had the strong season that we were expecting and highlight several that have pleasantly surprised us.
After moving four players out of the top 10 and four players in, Woods and Gaither re-order their lists and compare and contrast. Could a true freshman be the best player on the entire roster?
The show takes a detour into Alabama’s offensive philosophy and wonders if the Crimson Tide coaching staff had a bit of a breakthrough against Missouri.
Lastly we turn our attention to this weekend in college football as the final month commences. It’s not a great bye week slate of games for the Alabama fans to enjoy as there are only a handful of ranked matchups. Will Penn State defeat Ohio State? Can Vanderbilt go into Auburn and win? And will a former Alabama quarterback keep his team undefeated and in the College Football Playoff hunt?
The show can be seen on the BamaCentral YouTube channel. Keep up with each show on YouTube,Facebook and Twitter. Shows can also be heard on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon.
-
Movie Reviews1 week ago
Alien Country (2024) – Movie Review
-
Technology1 week ago
OpenAI plans to release its next big AI model by December
-
Health1 week ago
New cervical cancer treatment approach could reduce risk of death by 40%, trial results show
-
Culture1 week ago
Top 45 MLB free agents for 2024-25 with contract predictions, team fits: Will Soto get $600M+?
-
Sports1 week ago
Freddie Freeman's walk-off grand slam gives Dodgers Game 1 World Series win vs. Yankees
-
News6 days ago
Sikh separatist, targeted once for assassination, says India still trying to kill him
-
Culture6 days ago
Freddie Freeman wallops his way into World Series history with walk-off slam that’ll float forever
-
Technology6 days ago
When a Facebook friend request turns into a hacker’s trap