Alabama city to investigate policing for profit accusations against officers

Despite reporting only 55 serious crimes from 2011 to 2018, the police department had one officer for every 144 residents. Photograph: Vasha Hunt/AP

Residents of a small Alabama city will on Tuesday hold a town hall meeting to discuss claims by community members and activist groups that local police have pursued excessive policing for profit.

Officers in Brookside, a former mining town 20 min outside Birmingham, have been accused of generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in city revenue through ticketing, towing and other traffic-related fines, despite Brookside having no traffic lights and a few two-lane roads, news site AL.com first reported.