Mobile Police Chief James Barber didn’t mince words in his first public appearance since being accused of unlawfully pulling a gun on a suspect in an active burglary, calling the entire ordeal an “unwarranted distraction.”
Barber assisted in the arrest and apprehension of a burglary suspect he crossed paths with at the Roger Williams public housing development earlier this week.
Kenneth Padgett was stripping materials from the refrigerators and stoves in abandoned apartments there — a crime the 63-year-old has publicly admitted to several times — when he claims Barber violated his civil rights by pulling his service weapon.
Padgett told the media he didn’t think his burglary “was that serious,” and alerted Mobile City Councilman Fred Richardson, who then forwarded the complaint to the office of Mayor Sandy Stimpson.
“My advice to Mr. Padgett is the next time he is caught in the process of a burglary that he contact a lawyer and not his councilman,” Barber said. “I will make no apologies for taking action on a burglary in progress in the very neighborhood that these officials choose to avoid.”