Midfield Police Department

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The Midfield Police Department is the public safety and law enforcement arm of the City of Midfield.

The department was founded as a volunteer force shortly after the city was incorporated in 1953. with a temporary station behind Williams Hardware. Steelworker Curt Kuykendall volunteered as chief initially, with Henry Holmes succeeding him as the first paid chief.

In 1955 James W. Morris took over as chief and kept an office at Midfield City Hall while operations moved into a renovated building on the opposite corner of Woodward Road and Midfield Street. At that time that force consisted of 4 full-time trained officers and a warden supervising the 6-bunk Midfield City Jail. Morris soon expanded his force into a combined police and firefighting department, using the same trained officers to cover shifts and supplementing them with volunteer firefighters when the need arose. An automated telephone system alerted all officers and volunteers of emergencies. By 1968 the department maintained a fleet of two fire trucks, two police patrol cars and a motorcycle. One of the two police cars was replaced each year.

When Midfield was brought under the Personnel Board of Jefferson County in 1971, the city was forced hire police officers separately from firefighters. Morris continued to lead both departments as Midfield's Public Safety Director. When a new City Hall was completed, the older building was converted into a new police and fire station.

On March 24, ]]1980]] the city split off the Midfield Fire Department as a separate entity, and hired a new full-time fire chief. Morris stayed on as chief of police. The department moved to another new City Hall in the former Alabama State Highway Patrol station on Bessemer Highway in 1981.

On October 24, 1983 Midfield's City Council approved an ordinance submitted by Mayor Norton Burgess to re-combine their police and fire departments under one Midfield Department of Public Safety. William Harris was demoted from fire chief to fire lieutenant as Morris resumed leadership of the combined department. He retired on September 30, 1989, after which time, police and firefighting functions were again divided into separate departments. Another move to combine them in the 1990s was scuttled due to complexity of meeting the Personnel Board's requirements.

Lieutenant James Hayes took over the Police Department until retiring in 1994. The city then hired Ron White as the new police chief. He retired in 2009 and was succeeded by Henry Dudley, who served for less than a year. He applied for a transfer to the Hueytown Police Department when the city council began discussions about dissolving the police department and becoming part of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office jurisdiction. Mayor Gary Richardson convinced him to stay on as chief through June 2010. Frank Belcher was promoted from within the department to succeed him. The current chief, Jesse Bell, was promoted after Belcher retired in 2019.

As of 2024 the Midfield Police Department operates only on weekdays, with Sheriff's deputies responding to calls on weekends. It employs 18 sworn officers and 5 civilians. The patrol division operates on three 8-hour shifts with additional officers during busy hours. The detective division manages investigations, evidence handling, and community relations, with an additional resource officer posted to Midfield High School.


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