Drivers in Sheffield are noticing signs honoring a police officer killed in the line of duty in 2021.

Jackson Highway and Cox Boulevard have been designated as the Sgt. James “Nick” Nicholas Risner Memorial Drive.

The city designated the roadway by that name earlier this year.

A Sheffield K-9 officer, Risner, 40, died on Oct. 1, 2021 following a shootout in Muscle Shoals that began after a chase following a dead body being dumped onto a street.

The chase ended in an area behind the old Southgate Mall. Brian Lansing Martin, 41, of Sheffield, who had previously served three years of a 10-year prison sentence for a manslaughter conviction in the death of his father, was arrested and faces capital murder charges for Risner’s death.

Risner was seriously wounded during the shootout and died a day later at Huntsville Hospital.

A graduate of Central High School in Florence, Risner was a U.S. Army veteran who had been a member of Sheffield police for more than eight years.

Risner’s death also led to the passage of the Nick Risner Act, a state law prohibiting anyone convicted of a crime that involved killing another person with a deadly weapon from shortening their prison sentence under Alabama correctional incentive time, or “good time” law.