Police chief blasts cop for faking shooting so he could play hero

Birmingham Police Chief Patrick SmithBirmingham Police Department

A longtime Alabama cop staged a shooting and sent out a fake distress call last month, risking the lives of fellow officers — so that he would come off as a hero,  a police chief said.

Birmingham Police Chief Patrick Smith told reporters Thursday that department brass are now seeking warrants for criminal mischief, false reporting and discharging a firearm in city limits against Officer Patrick Buchanan for the July 21 distress call in an isolated area near Tarrant, AL.com reports.

“This officer did a lot on that night to present a false image of heroism,” Smith said. “He endangered the lives of the community by discharging his firearm, and also other officers, as they responded from all over the city to be at his side and do everything that they can to help.”

Buchanan had been patrolling near railroad tracks when he put out a call of shots fired as gunfire rang out in the background, but never finished his report to a dispatcher. A cop from nearby Tarrant later found his police car with a bullet hole through its front window, while Buchanan was discovered near the railroad tracks “appearing to be unconscious” and holding his gun while moaning, Smith said.

Police then blocked off roads to rush Buchanan to the hospital after the distress call was initially sent out as a report of an officer shot.

But the cop was later found completely unharmed at a hospital, the police chief said.

“Our investigation has concluded that this entire event has been a hoax — the radio call, the shots fired, the help call, lying injured on the tracks, the damage to the police car — all a hoax,” Smith told reporters. “We found nothing to support the officer’s accounts of this incident.”

Buchanan has been relieved of his duties and remains on paid administrative leave pending an internal affairs investigation. He graduated from the police academy in 2012 and has been previously reprimanded by supervisors for filing false reports, AL.com reports.

The incident was a clear case of “stolen valor,” one that has left the department “polarized and hanging its head low in disbelief,” Smith told reporters, according to WVTM.

Birmingham’s mayor, meanwhile, said the incident was flatly embarrassing.

“When we have an act like this, that’s pretty stupid and dumb, it makes me mad,” Mayor Randall Woodfin told WVTM. “We can’t have these type of things