BIBB COUNTY, Ala. — The state of Alabama will give $1 million to the family of Bibb County Deputy Brad Johnson, who was shot and killed last year while on duty.
Officials say that Johnson, a 32-year-old father of two girls, died on June 29, 2022, while he and Deputy Chris Poole were chasing Austin Patrick Hall in a stolen car.
Authorities said that Hall opened fire on them. The day after Johnson died, he was gone. Poole survived.
Hall, who is now 27 years old, was caught right away after the shooting death. In April, Hall was charged with five counts by a grand jury.
Gov. Kay Ivey announced the settlement on Wednesday and said, “Fundamental flaws in Alabama law granting correctional incentive ‘good time’ to inmates failed Deputy Johnson and his family.”
Ivey said, “On January 9, I issued an executive order to halt the deficiencies in correctional good time that allowed inmates reduced prison sentences and early release despite records of violent behavior and escape,”
“On April 14, I was also happy to sign SB1 into law. This bill makes more changes to good time in prison so that guilty criminals can’t use legal loopholes to threaten law enforcement and the public.
“Alabama supports our police officers, and we must do everything we can to make sure they have all the legal protections they need to do their jobs safely.”
Tommy James, the lawyer for Johnson’s estate, said that the settlement deals with the claims about what happened before Johnson died.
The allegations focus on Hall’s long list of crimes and the fact that he was not in jail, even though he had escaped from a work release program while on his list of crimes.
James claimed that Hall has been arrested at least 46 times and spent time in jail more than once.
“Deputy Johnson was more than a law enforcement officer; he was a devoted public servant and a true hero, and we will never forget his sacrifice,” James added. “His tragic death is a stark reminder of the dangers our law enforcement officers face every day.”
“Now that this settlement has been reached, Deputy Johnson’s family can focus on the criminal case against Austin Patrick Hall,” James added. “They want justice to come fast and be harsh.”
James has helped people in similar situations.
In the past, he fought for the families of Jimmy O’Neal Spencer’s three murder victims in Guntersville, Alabama, against the State of Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles. It was said that Spencer should not have been out of jail at the time of the killings.
James said that, in those cases, the State agreed to pay the most that the law allowed, just like it did today.
“Brad’s family is extremely grateful for the overwhelming support they have received from citizens throughout the state and across the country, and ask for continued thoughts and prayers,” James said.
After Hall was caught, some state officials said he shouldn’t have been out of jail when the shooting that killed someone happened.
Since he was a teenager, Hall had been in trouble with the law. Over the past ten years, at least 46 criminal charges were brought against him.
Hall’s past crimes have been looked at and used to call for stricter laws and change so that something like Hall’s murder doesn’t happen again.
Last year, after Johnson’s death, Alabama’s Attorney General Steve Marshall made a statement about Hall’s criminal past. He said that the state’s Good Time Law, which lets prisoners get less time in jail for being good, was broken.
Marshall also said that Hall was out on bond because he had been arrested after leaving the Alabama Department of Corrections.
At the time of the shooting that killed someone, Hall had already served his time in jail for a previous crime. He was not on parole or probation.
In 2016, Hall got his first run-in with the law when he was charged with theft and burglary and given probation. Marshall said that he was caught on nine new theft and burglary charges while he was on probation.
Hall pleaded guilty to second-degree theft, and in 2018, he was given a state prison term of nine years and nine months. Marshall said this was likely because Hall had been in trouble with the law before.
Hall ran away from the Alabama Department of Corrections in 2019. He was on work release at the time. He had been on the run for more than a month before he was caught in Georgia at the end of a police chase.
When they saw a car that had been reported stolen out of Pelham, cops in Oxford tried to stop Hall.
The police tried to stop the car, but the driver, Hall, wouldn’t stop, so they gave chase east on Interstate 20.
The chase stopped when the suspect was “pitted” by the Georgia State Patrol at mile marker 5. Hall’s car flipped over, but he was not harmed.
“Despite this, after serving less than four years of his sentence, the shooter was awarded correctional incentive time (good time), which was, and inexplicably remains, permissible under the state’s ultra-lenient incentive time law,’’ Marshall said last year.
At the time he was caught, Hall also had warrants for domestic abuse out for him in Chilton County.
Court records show that while Hall was being held in the Calhoun County Jail in 2020 after being caught again, he struck an officer and tried to choke him. He was charged with attack in the second degree.
In May 2022, 10 charges of second-degree getting stolen property, reckless endangerment, second-degree assault, certain people not being allowed to carry a gun, drug possession, resisting arrest, trying to get away, and third-degree burglary were filed against Hall in Calhoun County.
These charges are because of what happened in Calhoun County in 2019.
Hall’s sentence was over on April 8, 2022, and he was no longer under the care or direction of the Department of Corrections.
“Days after his release from state custody, the shooter bonded out of jail on 10 new charges in Calhoun County and 12 new charges in Chilton County—including charges of assaulting a police officer and illegally possessing a firearm,’’ Marshall said before.
“In both counties, his bond was set in accordance with the recommended fee range.” The shooter was released after making bond and awaits his trial.”
He said at that time that the rules about Corrective Incentive Time were broken.
“Had the shooter served his entire sentence, he would not have been able to commit his brazen crime spree across our state, which ended in capital murder,’’ the attorney general said.
“Furthermore, a prisoner who breaks out of jail should never, under any circumstances, be given an early release.”
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