Channing Lamar Spivey survived brain surgery, but for days he had been irritable, confused and behaving erratically. He was still suffering the side effects of the surgery and undergoing cancer treatments.
Family members were worried about him — and what might happen if he encountered the police.
His aunt Chanda Callaway said she called the local police department and the sheriff after hearing that Spivey had been spotted walking barefoot down Glenwood Road near his home just outside the tiny town of Luverne on May 27. That morning Spivey wrecked his SUV while doing “donuts” in an empty lot. Callaway wanted to let the police know about his recent brain surgery and the side effects.
That was just one of several times that day that the family tried to get help or call 911 to prevent an encounter between Spivey and local police.
Now Callaway is left wondering how those efforts failed because later that evening, 34-year-old Spivey was shot five times and killed by his nearest neighbor, Mason Adcock, the assistant police chief in Luverne.
At the time of the shooting all Spivey was wearing was a pair of swim trunks and underwear, according to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family. The scars from recent surgery were visible on his head. He had no weapon.
“I don’t understand it,” Callaway said in an interview with AL.com. “He was unarmed. He had brain cancer and he had been taking treatments.”
The shooting
On the afternoon of Thursday, May 27, less than three months after his surgery, Spivey was growing agitated with his brother, Westley, who was 29 years old at the time. Westley’s girlfriend called 911, told a dispatcher about the brain surgery and asked for help from emergency medical workers, according to the lawsuit.
A sheriff’s deputy accompanied the ambulance to the home where Spivey lived with his brother and his brother’s girlfriend on a country road a few miles outside town.
Spivey was uncooperative. He broke a window on the ambulance with his fist. The sheriff’s deputy, Brent Penny, tried using a taser to subdue him, according to the lawsuit.
But Spivey, walked toward Penny and ignored orders to get on the ground. The deputy drew his gun.
Meanwhile, Spivey’s brother’s girlfriend ran across the two-lane country road and raced up a gravel driveway to get help at Adcock’s home about 100 yards away.
Worried the deputy might shoot Spivey, she told Adcock that Spivey was behaving erratically after having brain surgery, according to the lawsuit.
When Adcock grabbed his gun and walked outside of his house, Spivey and Deputy Penny had crossed into Adcock’s driveway. Penny was backing away as Spivey walked toward him.
Penny ran over to Adcock and the men stood side-by-side, pointing their guns at Spivey, according to the lawsuit.
Spivey’s brother and a friend had followed the men toward Adcock’s home. They saw the guns and shouted to the lawmen that Spivey was recovering from brain surgery, the lawsuit says. The men asked the officers not to shoot, according to the lawsuit, and said they could help subdue Spivey.
When Spivey took a step toward the lawmen, Adcock fired his gun seven or eight times, according to the lawsuit, and Spivey was killed.
Channing Spivey was fatally shot in the driveway at his neighbor's home in Crenshaw County on May 27, 2020. Spivey's family is suing the neighbor, Luverne Assistant Police Chief Mason Adcock.
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency is investigating the shooting.
In response to a request for comment from AL.com, Capt. James Rigby, a spokesman for the State Bureau of Investigation, sent a statement that the agency released the day after the shooting.
“One person is deceased, and officers from both agencies received minor injuries, as did responding medical personnel, as a result of the incident, and were transported to a nearby medical facility for treatment,” the statement says.
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency didn’t respond to questions from AL.com.
Griffin Sikes, a Montgomery attorney, filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the family. The lawsuit accuses Adcock of excessive force and wrongful death. The lawsuit seeks damages “in such sum as a jury may determine to be necessary and appropriate…”
“The thing that strikes me about this case is not only how senseless and needless it was for Adcock to fire his weapon at (Channing), but they know all he’s got is his bare hands,” said Sikes. “What sort of threat could he have posed to Adcock or Penny with four men right there ready to subdue him if he persisted and tried to attack them?”
Sikes questioned why Adcock fired seven or eight times, including five shots that hit Spivey from about 10-20 feet away, yet the sheriff’s deputy never fired his gun.
“There’s pepper spray, there’s tasers, there’s batons, there’s all kinds of other intermediate weapons,” Sikes said. “The thing you go to is deadly force?”
Adcock, who remains on active duty with the Luverne Police Department, declined to comment for this story, citing the state investigation and lawsuit.
‘Kind eyes and a big heart’
Before having brain surgery in March, Spivey was finally settling into what could have been a lifelong career. He worked as an electrician, installing wiring in new beach homes along the Gulf Coast.
In an interview, Callaway recalled the excitement she saw in Spivey’s eyes when he got a new tool set last Christmas. Using a permanent marker, he wrote his name on each tool.
Channing Spivey is shown in an undated contributed photo with his aunt Chanda Callaway. After Spivey's parents died, Callaway became the guardian for Channing and his younger brother, Westley.
Spivey’s future was put on hold when he had a seizure in early March. Soon he was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and underwent brain surgery, which left a large incision across the top of his head.
It would be a tough recovery with chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Spivey lost weight and was weakened.
But he was an otherwise healthy man, so his family prayed and had faith that he would fully recover.
And besides, Spivey had already survived heartache and adversity. He was orphaned as a teenager when his mother died by suicide. His father died years earlier.
“It’s just so tragic,” said Callaway, Spivey’s aunt and the woman who became like his mother after his parents died. “He didn’t deserve either fate. He didn’t deserve any of that.”
Despite the hardships Spivey had faced as a child, he graduated from high school in Brantley, a tiny town in Crenshaw County, as the salutatorian and a leader on the football, basketball and baseball teams. He attended Troy University.
He loved playing chess, pool and poker, and listening to music. His passion was writing, and he dreamed of becoming an author.
At a celebration of life service, family members, friends, former coaches and others described Spivey: intelligent, charming, charismatic, loving, hard-working, dedicated.
“I just want everyone to remember Channing the way I remember Channing,” said Brittany Gaddis, Spivey’s high school sweetheart and longtime friend. “He had kind eyes and a big heart.”
Family called for help
Situated about 50 miles south of Montgomery, Luverne is home to about 2,700 people in Crenshaw County. It’s the kind of place, Callaway said, where everybody knows everybody.
Luverne, a tiny Alabama town in Crenshaw County, is located about 50 miles south of Montgomery on U.S. Highway 331.
In an interview with AL.com, she recalled Adcock stopping by to introduce himself last fall after she bought a house across from his property on Glenwood Road.
Spivey had been living there since his surgery. Callaway lives in the neighboring town of Brantley.
The family knew Adcock was the assistant police chief, Callaway said, and that’s why Westley’s girlfriend ran to Adcock’s house when the sheriff’s deputy and ambulance were at the home.
“She wanted to get another policeman to help Deputy Penny to bring order to the situation, to prevent Penny from shooting or hurting Channing, and to get Channing the medical attention he needed,” the lawsuit says.
Earlier, that day, Callaway had already contacted the local police to let them know about Spivey’s brain surgery and side effects.
Spivey’s behavior had changed months earlier. By the time his cancer was diagnosed in March, it was stage 4. He sometimes made bizarre posts on Facebook, said things that didn’t make sense and became less laid back. Callaway said doctors told her that symptoms of the cancer Spivey had are often misdiagnosed as schizophrenia.
Spivey went driving on the morning of the deadly shooting in his GMC Yukon. While doing “donuts” in an empty lot owned by a family friend, Spivey’s SUV hit a tree. The property owner didn’t want to file charges, according to the lawsuit, so two Luverne police officers offered to give Spivey a ride back to his house. He declined and walked barefoot about four miles home down the two-lane country road.
When Spivey’s family learned that he was walking back from town, they were concerned. Callaway said she called the Luverne Police Department and Crenshaw County Sheriff Terry Mears.
“She asked that if Channing acted irrationally that the police take his condition into consideration and try to avoid causing him injury and particularly that they not to strike him in his head,” the lawsuit says.
Callaway wants to know why Adcock shot Spivey after the family had repeatedly told the authorities about his mental state.
“He was supposed to help,” she said.
Investigation
Sikes, the attorney, said he believes the shooting and events before were captured on video by the deputy’s body camera. Crenshaw County Sheriff Terry Mears didn’t return a call for comment.
Luverne police Chief Michael Johnson said he couldn’t comment on the details of the case. He said because Adcock was off-duty and outside the Luverne city limits when the shooting happened, his department is not investigating.
Adcock still works for the police department and has not faced any discipline pending the investigation.
“He’s a valued member of our department,” Johnson said.
The police station in Luverne, Ala.
The chief said he doesn’t know when the state investigation might be finished.
“I look for it to be any time but I can’t promise that,” he said.
It’s common for local police or sheriffs in Alabama to request that state investigators probe cases in which officers shooting someone.
“The (state investigators) almost never, never, ever recommends that a police officer or deputy sheriff be criminally charged in any of these cases,” Sikes said. “It is only in the most extreme cases — where there is no way in the world they could avoid indicting the police officer — that there is a criminal prosecution.”
Legacy
The public has learned little about what happened on the day of the shooting. The authorities haven’t released any information since state investigators issued a statement the next day.
Absent a criminal prosecution, lawsuits are often the only way families or the public get to see video evidence in such cases in Alabama.
A handful of local news outlets did publish reports based on that statement from the State Bureau of Investigation. Neither the news reports nor the state’s press release identified Spivey nor Adcock.
“People might think Channing was just some outlaw that the police had to shoot and kill because he was out of control,” Callaway said. “That’s not the person he was. He was sick.
“And it’s really not fair for his legacy to be tarnished like that,” she added.
Callaway said she’s speaking out and pursuing the lawsuit because she wants the public to know what happened. She also hopes that changes will be made in local policing because of the case.
“Channing had all the potential in the world,” she said. “Even with part of his brain gone, he was smarter than a lot of people.
“I truly believe he could’ve done anything,” she continued. “He could’ve been anything.”
Channing Lamar Spivey (Contributed photo)
Callaway said she finds comfort knowing that Spivey was a Christian.
“He’s just gone, taken from us,” Callaway said. “If we didn’t know he was saved, it would be impossible.”