Officer Harley Alfred Chisholm III
Birmingham Police Department
Alabama
End of Watch: Thursday, June 17, 2004
Biographical Info
Age: 40
Tour of Duty: 6 years
Badge Number: 3055
Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Thursday, June 17, 2004
Weapon Used: Rifle; SKS
Suspect Info: Sentenced to death
Officer Chisholm, Officer Carlos Owen, and Officer Robert Bennett were shot and killed at approximately 1330 hours while serving a warrant at a home near 18th Street and Avenue P, in the Ensley area of the city.
The three victim officers, along with a fourth officer, went to the one-story row house that contained several apartments with a warrant for the arrest of a man on a misdemeanor assault charge. Officer Owen and Officer Chisholm entered the apartment through the back door intending to arrest the suspect.
The suspect broke away from them and ran toward the front of the house where Officer Bennett was about to come through the front door. One of the suspects then opened fire with an automatic SKS rifle, killing all three officers and wounding the fourth officer.
The suspected shooter and several other suspects were taken into custody near the scene by a tactical team a short time later. On January 19, 2005, the suspect that shot shot the officers was convicted of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. On September 23, 2005, he was given three death sentences.
Officer Chisholm had served with the Birmingham Police Department for six years, and had previously served with the United States Marine Corps. He was assigned to the West Precinct. Officer Chisholm is survived by his wife, mother, four sisters and a brother.
Related Line of Duty Deaths Officer C. Robert Bennett
Birmingham Police Department, AL
EOW: Thursday, June 17, 2004
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Officer Carlos Winston Owen
Birmingham Police Department, AL
EOW: Thursday, June 17, 2004
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Police killing trial gets graphic evidence
A Jefferson County jury this morning saw graphic pictures of three slain Birmingham police officers and listened as their co-workers described how they found their dead colleagues.
West Precinct Officer Hugh Butler testified that on June 17, 2004, he heard a police radio broadcast that fellow officers were in trouble and went to help them. When he got to the officers at an Ensley apartment where they were trying to serve a warrant, he found carnage.
Butler was one of a handful of witnesses to take the stand this morning for the second day of testimony in the capital murder trial of Nathaniel Woods, 28. Woods is charged in the slayings of officers Carlos Owen, Harley Chisholm and Robert Bennett, and the wounding of Michael Collins.
The trio was killed while trying to arrest Woods on a misdemeanor warrant. Admitted shooter Kerry Spencer, Woods' roommate, was convicted in June and sentenced to death.
Prosecutors contend that Woods set up the ambush that led to the officers' slayings. Woods' attorneys claim there was no plan to kill the officers and said Spencer fired on them in a knee-jerk reaction.
In this morning's testimony, Butler, among the first to arrive at the scene, said when he got there, he saw Bennett lying on the ground just outside the front door.
Bennett, he said, was "obviously dead, with a hole in his face and smoke coming out of it."
Butler said he called inside the apartment for Officers Carlos Owen and Harley Chisholm, but they didn't answer. When he called for the surrender of anyone else inside, there was still silence. He looked at two officers behind him and said, "We gotta go in."
When asked in court this morning by District Attorney David Barber if anyone was alive inside the apartment, Butler somberly replied, "Only us."
The officer then spotted Owen and Chisholm in the kitchen. "I could see Carlos and Chisholm, pretty obviously dead on the floor," he said.
Also this morning, Collins took the stand after already testifying yesterday and walked jurors through the events of the day of the deadly shooting. Collins told how he and Owen went to the back door while Chisholm and Bennett went to the front. When they tried to arrest Woods, he said, Woods denied having an outstanding warrant.
The officers called Chisholm, who had confirmation of the warrant and Woods' mugshot in hand, to the back door. When Chisholm told Woods to come out, Woods ran inside the apartment, followed by Chisholm, Owen and Collins.
Collins said he saw Chisholm and Owen with Woods and heard Woods say, "I give up. Just don't spray me with that Mace."
Somebody said that "they were going out the front" and Collins turned to out the back door and head toward the front. That's when gunfire erupted, he said.
James Micheal Gaudin 
