On the afternoon of November 29, 1979, Sergeant Albert Eugene Ballard, 46, was on patrol in downtown Birmingham just two days shy of retirement after 20 years with the Birmingham Police Department. A radio call about an armed robbery and a description of a Black male suspect led Sgt. Ballard to stop a man on the sidewalk at 2nd Avenue and 19th Street North. The man, later identified as Josephus Anderson, leaned into the patrol car and opened fire, fatally wounding Sgt. Ballard at point-blank range before fleeing.

Officers and U.S. Marshals chased Anderson, cornered him in an alley and engaged in a shootout in which Anderson was shot multiple times and captured. The handgun that killed Sgt. Ballard was later linked to a slain bank guard in Atlanta, and Anderson was a suspect in that robbery as well. After a protracted legal process with three hung juries, Anderson was convicted of murder on May 25, 1985, and the jury recommended life without parole.

Anyone who remembers Sgt. Ballard, his patrol that day, or has information about the robbery linked to the handgun is asked to come forward.