Jun 27, 2024

Does crime rise during the summer? How about on the full moon? (I have a not-at-all-serious theory about that one).

Today on the podcast, public-safety reporter Carol Robinson joins us to talk about some personnel changes at a couple of major police departments as well as some crime trends we're seeing this year and over the past few years.

Below, we have more current crime stories. And we get to include a couple of scientific phenomena: sea-life jubilees and Sarahan dust clouds.

Thanks for reading,

Ike Morgan

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Coastal Alabamians or visitors to the Mobile Bay area might've heard the Eastern Shore town city of Daphne called "Jubilee City."

That's a reference to a rare sea-life event known as a jubilee. It might be that in the entire United States, it occurs only in Mobile Bay. And Tokyo Bay is the only other place researchers know about that has jubilees.

It's something that may happen in Mobile Bay when you have an afternoon shower and wind out of the east. The oxygen level drops in the bay, causing at least the bottom-dwelling sea life to move out to the shoreline. The shallows can fill up with flounder and crabs and shrimp. In a strong enough event, everything will move near the shore.

Floundering can be a lot less challenging during a jubilee.

They usually last maybe a few hours, but AL.com's John Sharp reports that there was one that lasted a couple of days around Father's Day.

A lot of people showed up to take advantage, and a number of them were arrested as well.

Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Commissioner Chris Blankenship said it drew people who aren't usual bay anglers, and that some people seem to think it's a free-fish event. There were people ticketed for being over the limit on flounder and for having undersized fish. There was even a disorderly conduct arrest made when a man allegedly started yelling obscenities at Marine Resource Officers.

You can't take some people anywhere.

Blankenship said the flounder population took a dive six years ago and regulators have been working hard to rebuild it. His agency wants folks to know that if a jubilee happens, regulations and limits don't go out the window, and don't assume it's a fish kill going on and that you're doing the bay a favor by filling up your Yeti.

A dramatic run from the law ended with an alleged effort to claim the vehicle had been stolen, reports AL.com's John Sharp.

It's like a higher stakes version of "I borrowed this jacket from a guy."

Mobile police were trying to conduct a traffic stop near the intersection of Duval Street and Murray Hill Court around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. They say the man driving refused to stop, threw drugs from the vehicle and led them on a short chase. He then got out of the vehicle and swam across a creek to get away.

A little while later, the 25-year-old owner of the vehicle called police to report it stolen. In baseball that would be called a deke play. But police investigated and believe it was indeed the car owner they were pursuing all along.

So they added a "false reporting" charge to the usual "attempting to elude" and possession charges.

A Saharan dust plume is on its way in our general direction, reports AL.com weather reporter Leigh Morgan.

That's exactly what it sounds like: a plume of dust from the Sahara Desert, making its way across the Atlantic Ocean. The dust starts about a mile above the ground and can be a couple miles thick.

This one is scheduled to arrive in South Florida this weekend, but nobody's ever on time in South Florida.

Saharan dust plumes aren't rare events. There was one four years go that directly and obviously affected our sky in Alabama. They're masses of dry air that can suppress hurricane development in the Atlanta. And if they hold together well enough, they can cause hazy skies and really cool sunsets here.

“And if it wasn’t in the set, someone was giving me cash money to play it. And they still do.”

Taylor Hicks, on the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic “Sweet Home Alabama,” which he will sing at an Alabama Music Hall of Fame event today to celebrate the song's 50th anniversary.

In 1880, Helen Keller of Tuscumbia.

In 1964, Chuck Person of Brantley, who played and coached basketball at Auburn University and in the NBA.

Public-safety reporter Carol Robinson joins us to talk about some personnel changes at a couple of Alabama's largest police departments as well as some crime trends we're seeing this year and over the past few years.

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