BOSSIP Exclusive: Alabama Sheriff Arrests Blacks To Bring In Profits

Antonio Ball said he was walking to a relative’s house in a mobile home park last winter when he noticed a sheriff’s patrol car ride by him three times. He arrived at his family member’s house, and was playing with his four-year-old niece on the front porch when patrol cars barreled down the street and blocked the road. Three deputies got out, their guns drawn.

“They didn’t know my name until they got my wallet out of my back pocket,” Ball told BOSSIP.

Sheriff’s officers brought Ball to a police van parked behind an abandoned hospital. He waited there, with about a dozen other arrestees, before they drove to the Pickens County Jail. Ball and the rest of the people in the van were charged with felony drug distribution, as well as “Penalty Enforcement,” for allegedly selling drugs without paying taxes.

“There was mold everywhere,” Ball recalled. “Then we were taken to an overcrowded room. People were sleeping on the floors, on the table, up under the stairs.”

“The toilet was stopped up. We called them (corrections officers) to tell them to flush it. They said deal with it.”

A judge later set Ball’s bail at $40,000, and his mother had to scrape up $500 to pay a bail bondsman to get him out of lockup. Ball, who has no prior arrests, said although he’s unemployed, he has to find a way to make monthly payments

“It has affected me,” Ball said. “I really didn’t have any money anyway. It’s even more difficult.”

Ball said his niece has been traumatized from witnessing the sheriff’s officers drawing guns on her uncle.

“When I was in jail, she kept saying ‘they shot him! They shot him!’ She’s four.”

Ball denies selling or using drugs, and said the arrest meant he missed a chance to go to Little Rock, Ark. to get his truck driver’s license.

He said it’s common knowledge that the sheriff has targeted black men in the past, and the experience has ruined his life.

“They never read me my rights, and I ain’t seen a warrant yet,” Ball said. “I owe the bail bondsman $2,000 more dollars, and I don’t know where I’m gonna get that from.”