Wounded Birmingham Officer A “Gem”,,, 2 Suspects Jailed As Probe Continues Into Officer Shooting

A 7-year Birmingham police veteran assigned to a special investigative unit was recovering Friday after someone unleashed a hail of bullets into his unmarked car while he was doing surveillance on a violent crime suspect.

The officer, whose name is not being released, is part of the department’s Neighborhood Enforcement Team (N.E.T.), a task force implemented four years ago to help control crime in the city’s neighborhoods. He took a bullet to the arm Thursday night on West End’s Princeton Avenue, and then got on the police radio to call for help, saying “I’ve been hit.”

On Friday, police said they were holding two men in their early 20s pending formal charges. They are in the Birmingham City Jail on a 48-hour extension, which means they must be released after being locked up for two days if warrants against them aren’t obtained. Their names also have not been released.

More details emerged Friday as the probe continued. Authorities said the N.E.T. officer was on Princeton Avenue about 11:30 p.m. as part of an investigation into a person or people who are believed to be involved in violent crimes in the city. Initially police said the officer was a part of a follow-up investigation into a drug house complaint, but said as the investigation progressed, they learned that wasn’t necessarily the case.

The officer was wearing the N.E.T. uniform which is an army-green t-shirt and matching pants, or camouflage pants. He was in an unmarked vehicle when he saw the men approach his vehicle. Authorities said he saw what was happening, and began to drive off. That’s when shots peppered his vehicle.

“It’s unknown how many individuals were shooting or how many times they shot,” Shelton said.

The officer got on his radio and called for help. Other N.E.T. team members were in the area, as well as patrol officers, and they flocked to the scene. Authorities said the assailants jumped into a white SUV and fled, but because so many officers were in the area, they were able to get in behind the fleeing suspects.

After a brief chase, an undisclosed number of suspects bailed from the SUV and took off on foot. Birmingham police called in all five of its K-9 tracking teams to hunt for the suspects. Several high-capacity weapons were recovered.

Police cordoned off a large area in the West End neighborhoods, which drew complaints from some residents who couldn’t get into their homes or leave their homes. Shelton said it was necessary because of the way the tracking dogs work. “And we’re thank for our K-9 units for responding,” he said.

Two “persons of interest” were taken into custody with one hour of the shooting. The tracking dogs found one of them hiding under a vehicle in the driveway of a home a couple of blocks away.

Shelton said because of the nature of the investigation, which is fluid, additional details on the potential suspects aren’t being released. “I wish we could give you more, but at this time we cannot for the sake of the investigation,” he said. There are potentially other suspects who could be sought, he said.

The wounded officer, Shelton said, is doing well. “He actually was able to walk out of the hospital on his own strength and his own accord and we’re very thankful for that,” he said. “It could have been much worse. Thankfully he is alive, he is well, he is in good spirits.”

“I’ve known him personally and he works hard for us. He cares, and when you find an officer or public servant who cares about people, about what they go through, it’s a real gem,” Shelton said. “We are highly fortunate that it did not turn out worse than what it was.”

Shelton said they don’t yet know whether the shooter or shooters knew they were firing on an officer, but said that should have been identifiable by his clothing. Either way, he said, the shooters were in the wrong. “The individuals opened fire on a vehicle that was occupied and that in itself is reckless and it’s dangerous regardless of who the occupant is or was,” he said. “That’s behavior that cannot be tolerated in our city.”

Just hours before the officer was shot, and on the other side of town, another Birmingham police officer was involved with a shooting and that incident ended with the gun-wielding suspect dead.

The shooting happened about 6:30 p.m. at the Days Inn on U.S. 280. South Precinct officers were dispatched to the motel after several people reported seeing a suspicious man with a gun who had knocked on several doors.

When officers arrived, they ordered the suspect – now identified as 37-year-old Christopher Baird – to drop his weapon. He lowered it, but then raised it again and that’s when officer fired on him. Baird, of Vestavia Hills, was pronounced dead on the scene. The State Bureau of Investigation has taken over the probe, which is standard operating procedure in police-involved shootings.

Authorities are still trying to determine what led to Baird’s behavior. He had one prior felony conviction – in 2010 – but was known to lawmen in several area cities.

Shelton on Friday said both incidents illustrate the danger police officers face every day on the streets. He said Birmingham police alone respond to 14,000 to 15,000 calls a month and no call should ever be considered routine. “We don’t know what’s on the other side of that 911 call,” he said. “We’ve had officers respond to a call that seems to be a low-level, low-priority call, and all of the sudden, things go bad.”

“Unfortunately, that’s the nature of our work, the nature of what we deal with,” he said. “But our officers understand that. They accepted the call, the responsibility of knowing you don’t know what’s on the other side of the wall, who is on the other side of the door.”

He said no officer ever wants to hear that a fellow officer has been wounded, or worse. “We’re like family. For us, it’s like receiving a call that your loved one or your family member has been injured,” he said. “The worst goes through your mind. It really delves into the risks the officers take. But they chose to answer the call of service. That’s the difference.”