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Jon Anderson
New Hoover Police Chief Clay Morris
New Hoover Police Chief Clay Morris.
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Police Chief Clay Morris with family and Hoover City Council
Morris, second from right, poses for a photo with his wife, two of his children, Hoover Mayor Nick Derzis and, behind them, the Hoover City Council on Nov. 24.
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Jon Anderson
Police Chief Clay Morris with his command staff
Morris meets with his command staff on Dec. 9.
Hoover’s new police chief, Clay Morris, developed his affinity for law enforcement honestly.
His father, Jim Morris, worked his entire career in law enforcement, including time as secretary of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections. His dad founded the criminal justice program at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, as well as the police academy that Morris attended. His mother worked as the administrative assistant in the crime lab in Monroe.
“If I was sick from school, I would spend my days sitting at the crime lab with her,” he said.
His brother, Todd, has spent more than 35 years in law enforcement and in 2024 became the police chief in Saint George, Louisiana. He also has a nephew with the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office and a niece who is an intelligence analyst with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
“I come from a family of public servants,” Morris said. “I don’t know what else I would do. That’s what I was born and raised to do. It’s a calling, without question. You do not survive this career with decades in law enforcement without it being a calling.”
Morris has more than 30 years in law enforcement himself. He started with the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office as a reserve deputy sheriff while he was in college. He worked in Monroe’s marshal’s office while he was in graduate school and served about two years in the metro Monroe drug task force.
He spent the bulk of his career — 25 years — with the DEA, serving in Dallas, Atlanta, Amarillo, Nashville, a satellite of the District of Columbia office and Birmingham, where he served many years as the assistant special agent in charge.
During his time with the DEA, he was involved in some high-level international investigations that brought in some of the most violent and largest drug traffickers in the world, he said. And in Birmingham, his office was involved in a case in which more than 50 people were arrested on federal charges related to heroin distribution, including two cases of distribution that led to death.
Morris was Pell City’s police chief for almost four years before being hired to replace Nick Derzis in Hoover on Dec. 1.
Why come to Hoover?
Morris said when the Hoover job opened up, it was something he couldn’t pass up. “You can’t turn down an opportunity to try to be the chief of police of Hoover, Alabama,” he said. “It’s literally the best department in the state of Alabama. It’s known throughout the Southeast. It always has been known for cutting-edge excellence and operations and leadership.”
Following in Derzis’ footsteps is a challenge, but Morris said he aims to continue the pursuit of excellence. He believes the executive responsibilities he had with the DEA has well prepared him for the job in Hoover. He knows how to deal with multimillion-dollar budgets and the intricacies of personnel and administrative issues, he said.
In his time with the DEA, he worked with countless police departments across the country, from the largest to the smallest. “I think I can bring that insight and perspectives from those departments and bring what’s good, and I also know what’s bad,” he said.
Morris said the first thing he did in Hoover was to meet with all the police department employees in groups. The department is going through a lot of change with a new chief and the retirement of the assistant chief and executive officer, and he knows change can be unsettling for some people. He doesn’t anticipate making any wholesale changes immediately but will be looking for ways to improve efficiencies where possible, he said.
Budget challenge
The biggest challenge facing the department now is not crime; it’s the budget, Morris said. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, some line items in the budget have been cut 20-30%, and “we’ve got to get that back to where we can do our job at the same level and standard of excellence that has always been done,” he said. “I understand being a good steward of taxpayer money, but crime changes, technology changes, criminals change — and we have to be able to keep up with that. We have to hire the best officers. We have to have the best equipment.”
Hoover has 191 sworn police officers now but needs about 200 for its size, he said. He’s asking for five new officer positions immediately and likely five more at the mid-year budget point, and he thinks the city council is open to that.
He also wants to work on recruiting so that Hoover can once again attract good officers from other departments instead of hiring so many people who still have to go through the police academy, he said.
“Recruiting has been hard the last few years, but I think we’ve turned the corner on that,” he said. “I think you’ve seen that nationally.”
Morris also wants to expand the city’s use of drones as first responders. There is one first responder drone at Hoover City Hall right now, and he wants to add more of those in the eastern and western parts of the city, he said.
“Without question, it’s a game changer in response time for situational awareness for our officers,” Morris said. “You can have a drone up and at a scene in minutes. … With a violent call, it changes our response. It changes our tactics and makes us more efficient.”
The city’s fleet of police vehicles also needs updating, he said.
Building partnerships
Morris also said he’s eager to continue to build and strengthen partnerships — with faith-based organizations, businesses and other law enforcement agencies. “Partnerships matter,” he said. “We can’t do it alone.”
Morris did not have to move his residence because he and his wife already live in an area off U.S. 280. He has a daughter at Briarwood Christian School and two sons — one working in Memphis and another who is a senior at Auburn University.
Derzis said there were seven applications to fill his shoes as Hoover’s top cop. Picking one of them was a very tough decision, but he knows that Morris is the right one for the job, he said.
Derzis has known Morris for more than 12 years and said he believes he is handing the reins of the Hoover Police Department over to someone who is smart, tenacious and innovative and who will continue to keep Hoover one of the safest communities in the country.
Morris thanked the mayor and city council for putting their trust in him.
“It’s not lost on me [that] I’m replacing a chief that has been here almost 21 years. The gravity of that is fairly heavy,” he said. “I will bring an honest and dedicated work ethic that will be second to none. I truly believe that Hoover is on the cusp of a very transformative almost Renaissance period for the city of Hoover, and I’m thrilled to be a part of that.”
