By Barnett Wright
The Birmingham Times
Patrick Smith took office June 25 as Birmingham’s new police chief, and among his belongings is an envelope he’s carried since the start of his law enforcement career 28 years ago.
When Smith joined the Los Angeles Police Department in 1990, his mother gave him a sheet of paper and asked him to write his goal for the future. He wrote four words: “Chief of Police, Birmingham.”
“I kept that piece of paper in an envelope for the duration of my career,” Smith said in a recent interview with the Birmingham Times. “When I received the call from (Mayor Randall Woodfin about) becoming chief of police in Birmingham, it was a very emotional moment because I pointed to the heavens and said, ‘I told you, Mom, we could do it.’” Smith’s mother, Dorothy, died seven years ago, but she would be proud of her son — a veteran LAPD administrator who is now police chief for Alabama’s largest city. After a five-month search, Woodfin announced June 4 that Smith would serve as chief of the Birmingham Police Department.
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