On Halloween night in 1982, 51-year-old Robert D. Patterson, a White, 20-year veteran of the Birmingham Police Department, was killed in Birmingham, Alabama while working a secondary, plainclothes security job at a nightclub on Morris Avenue. A fight between two women led Patterson to intervene; he disarmed one woman who had a knife and was escorting her from the club when an on-duty uniformed officer arrived.

The arriving officer, unaware of the context and seeing a plainclothes man with a woman and a knife, grabbed Patterson’s arm and fired one shot. Patterson was taken into surgery but died of his wound shortly afterward.

Are there witnesses or family members who remember that night or who can add details about Patterson’s service and the events on Morris Avenue?