On December 13, 2017, at approximately 1:08 a.m., officers with the Marion County Sheriff’s Office and the Hamilton Police Department responded to a residence located on Reese Road, Hamilton, Alabama, after Marion County Dispatch received a request from an individual to perform a welfare check on an individual possibly in distress at the residence. At some point, after the officers arrived at the residence a confrontation with an armed subject occurred causing one of the officers to discharge his firearm. The armed subject received a fatal injury and was pronounced dead at the scene by the Marion County Coroner. The State Bureau of Investigation responded to the residence and their Agents are currently investigating the incident.  As the incident is currently under investigation no other information is available at this time.

Doug Jones won the special election for U.S. Senate Tuesday by a very small margin with one of the largest turnouts for any state election. According to the Associated Press, Moore had 82% of the votes in Winston County, 79% in Marion, and 69% in Franklin County. It was Birmingham, Montgomery, Mobile, Huntsville and south central Alabama which made Jones the winner.

Jones will fill out the remaining two years of the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by Jeff Sessions when he was appointed as U.S. Attorney General. This means in two years Jones will need to run again for the full 6-year term for the Senate. As has always been the case in Alabama politics, much can happen in two years or even two months or two days.