He initially commanding a force of three patrolmen, Ed Taylor, Robert Bailey and A. Robinson, but the young department was expanded with ten new recruits over the course of that year.

That force held strong for the next year, but was reduced back to five men, headed by E. G. Taylor, during William Morris' second administration in 1876.

Under Thomas Jeffers's administration, it was reduced back to three, with Ben Plosser commanding William Seay and John B. Lewis.

He brought W. G. Oliver back as Marshal and also appointed John Thompson to serve as Captain of Police, commanding officers G. W. Merritt, J.

B. Donelson, H. U. McKinney, T. J. Boggan, A. H. Maynor and James McGee were sworn in as new officers that term.

Newly-sworn officers included J. D. Anderson, Charles Martin, J. M. Nix, W. M. Turner, W. J. Carlisle, A. L. Sexton, R. M. Saunders, W. H. Pinkerton, T. Z. Hagood, Richard Smoot Jr, James Turner, B. R. Childers, Thomas Hart, J. S. Oldham, O. M. Hill, R. H. McCullum and James Hillary.

[citation needed] The Birmingham Police Department, with the help of U.S. Steel, vigorously investigated and targeted labor activities during the 1930s and 1940s.

Information was fed to a "Red Squad" of detectives "who used the city's vagrancy and criminal-anarchy statutes (liberally reinforced by backroom beatings) to strike at radical labor organizers."

[2] In 1963, the Birmingham campaign pushed for racial integration and faced violent responses from the police department, especially with the Children's Crusade.

The Support Services Division consists of the Records, Report Review, Property Room and Corrections Units.

[6] It consists of the five police precincts, the Mayor's Security Detail and the Community Services Division.