HPD HISTORY

Homewood’s police department was founded in September 1926. It consisted of two officers, Officer E.L. Scott and Captain W.F. Patterson. In February of 1927 the Alabama Legislature approved the new city’s creation and two more officers were added to force along with Homewood’s first Chief of Police, Red Cunningham.

The city purchased a used car for police use in December of 1927. The car lacked heat, so during cold weather the officers spent their shift with a jail blanket covering their legs.

In early 1928, the city council voted to increase the number of officers on duty during the night but the Great Depression hampered the effort to add officers. The department used senior boys from Shades Cahaba High School to escort children at school crossings. The city was able to start enlarging the police department again in 1936.

During the 1950’s the department grew to 22 officers, two of them female. In 1953 Homewood lost its first police officer in the line of duty. Officer Ed McCormack was in a patrol car responding to a call just before dawn when he was struck head-on by a Greyhound bus on Windsor Drive. The department hired its first African-American officer, Jessie Mack, on December 1, 1974.

In the 1980's the Police Department's facilities were significantly upgraded with the construction of a new building which included a new jail and computer system. In July 2020 the Police Department moved into a new state-of-the-art facility on West Valley Avenue. This new Police Headquarters is one of the most advanced of its type in the region and boasts a new correctional facility, Justice Center, and modernized communication and computer systems. The new Headquarters is nearly three times the size of the outdated facility in downtown Homewood and was designed and built with the future of the organization as its primary consideration, allowing for the expansion of the Department and accommodating the increasing scope of its service-oriented mission.