Charges filed after scuffle involving Perry commissioner

MONTGOMERY | A Marion woman on Friday charged that Perry County Commissioner Albert Turner Jr. injured her this week in a fistfight during a closed-door commission meeting.

Vinnie Royster, 45, in a police report and in a telephone interview, said that Turner choked her and wrestled her to the floor in the presence of four other commissioners to whom she had turned after listening to what she said was an offensive Sunday radio address.

“Johnny Flowers hollered, ëAlbert, quit choking that woman,’ ” Royster said Commission Chairman Flowers said during the fight.

Turner, 38, said an altercation took place on Tuesday, but he was protecting himself against a “deranged” woman whom he had defeated in the 2002 commission primary.

“I wouldn’t call it a fight,” he said. “She pushed me in the chest and went after my private area. And to keep her from pulling my private area out, I had to defend myself. Never did I hit her with my fist, and I didn’t choke her.”

A police report Royster filed said during the altercation Royster “grabbed his crotch area, she squeezed and twisted.” Royster said Turner then “hollered ëunnnhhhh,’ ” and he released her.

The fight continued until he was pushed out of the room, the police report said.

The police report, filed Tuesday, said Royster had scratches, bruises on her arms, legs, hip, shoulder and back and has a choke mark on her neck. She was taken to the hospital, the report said.

Royster said she tried to swear out an arrest warrant with Perry County Court Clerk Mary Moore but was refused.

Moore said the county’s policy is not to issue arrest warrants based on allegations without an investigation by officials.

Royster said District Attorney Ed Green’s office is investigating. Green didn’t return a telephone call. Neither did Marion Police Chief Tony Buford.

Flowers said the altercation occurred so quickly he couldn’t actually see what happened.

“She made the first contact,” Flowers said. “The next thing you know he was on top.”

Commissioner Brit Harrison said Turner actually punched Royster in the chest.

“He had his arm around her neck on the floor,” Harrison said.

Royster said she was offended when Turner, on his Sunday radio show, called opponents of a proposed landfill in Uniontown “hanky-headed n– – – – – -.” She said a “hanky-head” black in slave days worked in the slave owner’s home and tattled on field hands.

Royster said she had gone to the commission after its Tuesday meeting and was ushered into a back room with four commissioners. She said she played the tape, and Turner came into the room and the fracas started.

Flowers said he was unsure what Royster wanted before the closed-door meeting he declined to characterize as a secret meeting.

“His daddy was a civil rights leader, and he took care of people, but he called us n – – – – – and beat me up, a woman,” Royster said.

Perry County officials and some residents are at odds over a 1,113-acre landfill southwest of Uniontown.

Turner was implicated in a ticket-fixing scandal that encompassed the administration of former Gov. Don Siegelman in which Turner served as assistant director of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs.

In 2000, Siegelman said he might have to fire Turner, but Turner resigned after numerous speeding tickets of his were fixed. Turner claimed that his tickets were the result of his family’s civil rights actions. He’s the son of the late civil rights leader Albert Turner Sr.