On a tragic afternoon in Birmingham, Alabama, on June 17, 2004, Harley Alfred Chisholm, a 40-year-old male police officer, lost his life in the line of duty. A veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, Chisholm had served with the Birmingham Police Department for six years, where he was a respected Field Training Officer at the West Precinct. That day, he and three other officers went to an apartment in the Ensley area to serve a misdemeanor assault warrant.
Upon their arrival at the residence,
which was known as a drug house, Officers Chisholm and Carlos Owen entered through the back door to arrest a man named Nathaniel Woods. As they attempted to take him into custody, Woods resisted and broke free, running towards the front of the apartment where Officer Charles R. Bennett was positioned. At that moment, another man inside the apartment, Kerry Spencer, opened fire with a high-powered SKS rifle. The sudden and intense gunfire resulted in the deaths of Officer Chisholm, Officer Owen, and Officer Bennett. A fourth officer, Michael Collins, was wounded in the ambush.
In the aftermath of the shooting, a tactical team responded and took Spencer and several other individuals into custody near the scene. Both Kerry Spencer and Nathaniel Woods were subsequently charged with capital murder for the deaths of the three officers. Prosecutors argued that while Spencer was the gunman, Woods was an accomplice who had lured the officers to the apartment. Both men were convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death.
Years later, the legal saga continued. Nathaniel Woods was executed by lethal injection on March 5, 2020. Kerry Spencer, the man identified as the triggerman in the deadly shooting, remains on death row. The violent deaths of the three officers, including Harley Chisholm, left a lasting impact on the Birmingham community and the law enforcement fraternity.
