August 16, 2025

Mobile County Sheriff Defends Pursuit That Left 1 Person Dead

By Dale Hines
Blue RAM Media/Gulf Coast News

August 16, 2025

MOBILE, Ala. The Mobile County Sheriff’s Office has reported that their deputies were involved in a pursuit that ended in fatality.

The sheriff’s office stated that the pursuit through Midtown Thursday evening ended in a crash that left one person dead, and one person hospitalized.

Deputies had been searching for a man wanted on numerous charges involving a domestic violence incident.

43-year-old Joel Fuller, who was facing multiple domestic violence charges and had allegedly been sending threatening messages to the victim for weeks was spotted by deputies and tried to conduct a traffic stop on the vehicle off from Old Shell Road but Fuller refused and led deputies on a pursuit.

He was driving erratically through neighborhoods and eventually ran a red light at Airport Boulevard and Florida Street. Fuller collided with a Jeep Cherokee, leaving both drivers seriously injured.

Mobile Fire-Rescue and EMS responded and they were then transported to the hospital, where Fuller later died from his injuries. The Jeep driver is in stable condition with a few broken bones.

Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch is defending the decision to pursue the suspect.

“For those who are critical of it in this particular situation, put yourself in the place of someone with a sister or a daughter who’s been repeatedly threatened, threatened to be killed, and all that, and we break off the chase, and then later that night, that happens,” Burch said.

“You have to weigh calling off that pursuit versus we’ve got a domestic violence that has significantly escalated over a period of a couple of weeks. You know, that puts that victim at risk,” Burch said.

Sheriff Burch said he and his deputies would make the same decision to pursue the suspect in the same situation, to protect a domestic violence victim.

“It’s our job to catch people like that. And again, we would not be doing our duty to potentially prevent a death related to domestic violence or serious bodily injury,” Burch said.