OFFICERS DOWN

No Way To Make Sense Of Three Senseless Deaths

How to make sense of the senseless? Sometimes, it just can't be done.

What began as the routine serving of a misdemeanor crime warrant
Thursday ended in the midday shooting deaths of three Birmingham
police officers. It hardly seems possible.

Yet officers Carlos Owen, Harley Chisholm III and Charles Bennett are
dead, killed in Ensley at what neighbors and police called a drug
house. Two officers died just inside the back door, while the third
died just outside the front door, making a final radio call for help
before a bullet struck him in the head.

Nathaniel Lauell Woods, 27, who was wanted by Fairfield police on a
third-degree assault charge, was taken into custody, according to
Jefferson County Sheriff Mike Hale. At least one other man was in
custody Thursday night after an intense manhunt over two city blocks.
Investigators would not say whether they had the actual shooter in
custody.

Owen, 58, joined the Birmingham Police Department in September 1977
and was a training officer in the West Precinct. Three times, in 1993,
1997 and 1998, he was the precinct's officer of the year. Owen had
been eligible for retirement for several years.

Chisholm, who would have turned 41 next week, joined the force in
November 1998.

Bennett, 33, had been a Birmingham police officer since November
2001.

All three officers worked the day shift in the West Precinct, just
blocks from where they were gunned down.

Their deaths are a heartbreaking reminder of just how dangerous and
deadly a police officer's job can be. Every day they wear the uniform,
officers face the very real possibility they could be hurt or killed
in the line of duty.

It's easy to take police officers for granted, and maybe even get
angry at them over a traffic ticket. Yet, cliche though it is, the
police really are the thin blue line between a peaceful society and
lawlessness. Thursday, a killer ripped holes in that line with a spray
of bullets from an SKS-type assault weapon.

The broken line will be repaired, with other officers at the West
Precinct assuming the duties of the fallen officers. What can never be
fully mended are the broken lives of grieving family and friends.

"We just ask the public to pray for the officers, their families and
the officers who are still on duty," Birmingham Police Chief Annetta
Nunn said.

It's the very least we can do for them.