As the Birmingham Police Department grapples with a severe officer shortage, old wounds are being opened for the family of Sgt. Wytasha Carter. His widow and father now believe a lack of manpower and training contributed to the officer’s death.

Sgt. Carter and another officer were shot and killed on January 13, 2019. Carter was shot in the head and did not survive. The second officer was seriously injured

Former police chief Patrick Smith said at the time: “It appears the officers were unable to respond, completely taken by surprise.” The suspect pleaded guilty to murder and is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. The family was first informed of Sgt. Carter was called in to provide backup assistance.

“We need to know the truth, at least give us that. Here we are almost six years later learning the truth; it reopens the wounds,” said Tiphanie, Carter’s widow.

This truth, she says, has been revealed in recent reports about staffing shortages. The family learned that police were conducting a sting operation that night after a series of car burglaries in the city’s north end.

Sgt. Carter asked his supervisor to cancel, believing there were not enough officers on duty that night to work safely. But they were ordered to proceed according to the family.

“If things had been handled differently in terms of staffing and scheduling, he would be here today,” Tiphanie Carter remarked. She told us that her husband worked until 9 a.m. and was back at work at 1 p.m. “He came home and slept for about two hours,” Carter said.

The family says body camera video also revealed training issues. The situation was already out of control when Sgt. Carter has arrived. He controlled one of the suspects, while the other two officers controlled the other suspect.

“The other sergeant didn’t have handcuffs and when she turned around to get the handcuffs, that gave the guy the opportunity,” Carter said. This, they said, was an opportunity for the suspect to pull a gun out of his pocket and fire shots.

“Proper training would never have allowed this to happen. It was a failure that night,” said Wytasha’s father, Ronald Carter.

He told us his son had moved from Fairfield PD to Birmingham PD where he would get good training and support. At the time, Birmingham’s forces exceeded a thousand officers.

Over the years, positions have been eliminated and positions have remained vacant. The strength was 118 officers missing in 2019the year Sgt. Carter was killed. By 2022, the department had lost 168 sworn positions. In 2023, the numbers increased to 234 vacant positions. For 2024, there is 223 unfilled sworn officer positions.

“There are officers who refuse to come to Birmingham because of what happened to my son. They keep putting a bandage on a wound,” remarked Ronald Carter.

ABC 33/40 News spoke with officers who spent more than a decade with the Birmingham Police Department and now work in other departments. Each cited a lack of manpower, grueling shifts answering 17 calls a day and concerns about their personal safety and mental health as reasons for their departure.

There are also complaints that Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin is trying to run the police department from the mayor’s office, handcuffing the chief.

One called the job remarkable when he started, then said that “for the number of calls Birmingham gets, they’re killing their officers.”

Sgt. Carter’s widow remembers his last words on body camera. “After he said stop playing, we had families to go home to, you never heard my husband’s voice. Those were his last words,” Carter recalled. His father says those words still haunt him today.

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Birmingham police declined to answer questions raised by the Carter family.

ABC 33/40 News has requested to review body camera footage and witness statements from the State Bureau of Investigation. The Carter family had no objection to us reviewing the documents.

ABC 33/40 News received this written response from SBI:

The Alabama law enforcement agency considers body camera footage, crime scene photos, investigative reports, field notes, witness statements and other investigative writings or recordings as investigative documents. We are therefore unable to provide them.

Sgt. Carter would have turned fifty in November. Carter was a husband, father of two and veteran.