Birmingham Police Department

The investigation had grown into a massive joint effort.

The Southeast Bomb Task Force, made up of the FBI, ATF, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Alabama Bureau of Investigation, Birmingham Police, and the Justice Department prosecutors all worked together in full force.

They interviewed thousands of witnesses and traced nearly every component of the Birmingham bomb.

The collected evidence was strategically sent to prosecutors in Atlanta, Birmingham, and North Carolina, with the assistance of numerous other states and local law enforcement agencies.

You have been chief now for how long?

Officially a little bit over a year, but I took the helm of the Birmingham Police Department in November of 2024.

So in a couple of months, I'll be at about two years.

Okay.

At 22 minutes past the hour of 10, a force let loose that electrified and shook the world.

The Birmingham Police Department's six-wheeled riot tank entered the area and cops commenced firing shotguns over the Negroes' heads to rock-throwing retaliation.

Young boys started stoning passing cars with white passengers.

Police ordered them to stop.

The night turns into the next day.

And suddenly the family is calling the Birmingham Police Department to file a missing person report.

Right.

But there is a detail here that makes this particular disappearance even more chilling I think.

Because in 1988, that missing person report for Bryant Keith Bates was quite literally a piece of paper.

Just a typed sheet.

An officer typed it up, put it into a manila folder and dropped it into a physical metal filing cabinet in a specific records room at the Birmingham Police Department.

Okay, and then 16 years pass.