Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon told Gulf Coast Media Tuesday "nothing" happened but did not strictly deny his connection to a 2024 police response for a domestic violence call at the city's Coastal Resources office.

The 911 call from Labor Day weekend last year has been one of the major storylines this election cycle, with opponents to the incumbent mayor since 2008 using the incident to say he is not fit for municipal leadership and Kennon and his family repeatedly taking to social media to discredit what they say are attacks on the family. In the audio of the body camera footage from a city police officer, which was published Monday by Mobile-based Lagniappe via an anonymous source, the man in the office space identifies himself as the mayor, by name.

"My wife and I have said over and over again there was no incident between us," Kennon told GCM via text message Tuesday afternoon. "Nothing!"

GCM was denied access to the footage via an Open Records request submitted through official channels to the city last month.

The audio recording, for which Lagniappe also published a transcript, starts with an officer interviewing complainant Tierra Morrill where she says she was closing Tiki Bar across the waterway from the Coastal Resources building when she said she saw a man “butt naked on the patio” grab a woman by her hair, hit her two to three times and scream, “You’re never going to run out on me. Don’t you run out on me.”

“I don’t mean to get involved in people’s business, but that was not OK,” Morrill told the officer.

In working at Tiki Bar for over a year, she said she had never seen anyone use the building and assumed it was only used by the Coast Guard. The officer responded to her, “Yeah, I did, too.”

When officers arrived at the Coastal Resources building, they reached the office door and knocked, announcing they were with the police department.

In response, the man behind the door said, “It’s Tony Kennon. I’m the mayor; it’s my office.”

One of the officers acknowledged the mayor by first name and explained Orange Beach Police Department (OBPD) had received a call.

The man who identified himself as Kennon said, “That’s OK, tell me about it.”

“Some lady across the way called and said that they thought there was a domestic going on out here,” the officer said.

The man apologized to the officers then said, “My wife’s here with me. You can talk with her if you’d like. … This is our escape — we get away from everything here.”

One of the officers said they didn’t know someone was staying in the Coastal Resources building and he that found it odd that’s where the call was to. The man apologized again and said he didn’t know what “domestic” would be referring to.

The officer said the complainant didn’t give that much information other than “they thought a domestic was going on.”

The man again apologized and said the building was a “getaway on the weekends” for when “we’ve got no place else to go.” One officer said, “sorry to bother you,” and the officers thanked him and left the scene.

As previously reported by GCM, Kennon's name did not appear in police reports from the response. A supplemental report, attached to a Lagniappe article on the incident, indicated an officer contacted an "alleged victim Ms. Kennon" four days after the incident as a welfare check.

"I apologized to Ms. Kennon for the officers' failure to complete the initial investigation and acknowledged that the responding officers had the opportunity to make contact with her but were negligent in doing so," the supplemental report reads. "Ms. Kennon confirmed that no incident occurred and that she did not require any assistance."

The mayor told GCM Wednesday morning he thinks the discourse over the situation from last year is one-sided but that he cannot, or will not, speak publicly about it.

"It is a complicated story where my wife and I were not able to speak on it in specifics because of police investigations and inquiries," he said via text Aug. 20. "Please note, we were not subjects of an investigation in any way, form or fashion. My wife and I agreed not to speak publicly specific to this issue so as not to compromise any of the inquiries, investigations and not take personnel issues public, as is city policy, but yet everyone is printing a partial story based on leaks. Sounds very political to me."

In a video posted on Kennon’s official campaign Facebook page on Aug. 11, his wife, Paula Kennon, defended her husband of 33 years.

“We have tried to stay above the nonsense, but I will not stand by while falsehoods and slander continue unchecked,” she said.

She said the events happened almost a year ago and that there is political motivation for bringing it up now. She called the accusations “vile” as well as “libel and slander.”

“What is being said is simply not true. It never happened, it has never happened, and it will never happen,” she said. “It’s time for this character assassination to stop.”

Shortly after Lagniappe posted the article on the newly acquired police recording this week, Tony Kennon posted on his campaign Facebook about Freedom Fest, an upcoming annual event hosted by the City of Orange Beach celebrating patriotism, veterans and military families that he spearheaded in 2020 in response to the City of Gulf Shores canceling the Annual National Shrimp Festival.

The incident was also recently brought up during a debate between Orange Beach's two mayoral candidates, Kennon and City Councilman/Mayor Pro Tem Jeff Boyd.

A debate question concerned the transition of leadership at the police department as the police chief is set to retire at the end of the month. In the rebuttal period on the question, as previously reported by GCM, Boyd said he nor other council members knew of the police report before being contacted by Lagniappe reporters.

In his rebuttal, Kennon said the office space where the response occurred is open to all city officials and, to Boyd, “you knew that.” He also said council was presented “all the data” from the response when it happened.

Kennon previously told GCM, on the incident itself, "No comment. It's so ugly and vile. It's up to the people of Orange Beach whether they believe it or not."