Birmingham Fire & Rescue continues to make security improvements one year after Station 9 double shooting

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - A year ago, two Birmingham firefighters were shot while working at Station 9. Five days later, Jordan Melton passed away from his injuries. Jamal Jones is still recovering from being shot multiple times that day.

Birmingham Fire Chief Cory Moon says that day changed the lives of the Melton and Jones families and the fire department. He adds they already had security cameras at all stations before this tragedy and now, with the help of the mayor’s office and city council, they’ve added even more.

“Somebody coming to a fire station while our personnel were working, just coming to do their job and protect the citizens, still hurts. I still feel that pain every single day,” says Moon. “It’s something I don’t think we will ever get over.”

Finding out that two firefighters had been shot the morning of July 12, 2023 as they prepared to start their shift is something Moon still struggles to understand, especially knowing it happened even with some security measures in place.

“When I took over in 2020, one of the things that was important to me was to have security cameras at each of our fire stations,” adds Moon.

This incident has caused the department to add even more layers of security with help from city leaders. “More recently, we’ve been able to get funding to add more security cameras to each station and also done some door access control measures that we recently got approved for,” says Moon. “We’ve done a lot to improve the security at our fire stations. Having those security cameras is a big step.”

Moon says his responsibility is to ensure his personnel have a safe place to return to while they continue to protect and serve the community.

“The people that work here are family to me. I spent a lot of my time, not only as the fire chief, but actually working with a lot of these people. I trained them when I was a training officer. I have personal connections with a lot of our personnel,” said Moon. “To me, it’s a family relationship. I just always want to make sure they know I’m here for them, no matter what.”

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