Four people were killed and 17 others injured when multiple shooters opened fire Saturday in what police described as a targeted “hit” on one of the people killed at a popular nightlife spot in Birmingham, Alabama,
The shooting happened shortly after 11 p.m. Saturday in Five Points South, a district filled with entertainment venues, restaurants and bars that is often crowded on weekend nights. The mass shooting, one of several this year in the city, unnerved residents in the area and left city officials pleading for help to both solve the crime and address the broader problem of gun violence.
“The priority is to find these shooters and get them off our streets,” Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said at a Sunday press conference.
The shooting occurred outside Hush, a hookah and cigar lounge, in the entertainment district. Blood stains were visible on the sidewalk outside the venue on Sunday morning.
Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond said authorities believe the shooting targeted one of the people who was killed, possibly in a murder-for-hire. He said a vehicle pulled up and “multiple shooters” got out and began firing, then fled the scene.
“We believe that there was a ‘hit,’ if you will, on that particular person,” Thurmond said.
Police said approximately 100 shell casings were recovered at the scene. Thurmond said law enforcement was working to determine what weapons were used, but they believe some of the gunfire was “fully automatic.” Investigators were also trying to determine whether anyone fired back, creating crossfire.
Police said officers found two men and a woman on a sidewalk with gunshot wounds and they were pronounced dead there. An additional male gunshot victim was pronounced dead at a hospital, according to police.
By early Sunday, after victims began showing up at hospitals, police had identified 17 people with injuries, some of them life-threatening.
The area of Birmingham is popular with young adults because of its proximity to the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the plethora of nearby restaurants and bars.
Geoffrey Boshell, a 22-year-old biomedical engineering student who lives nearby, said he was working on a school project when he heard a burst of rapid pops that he said sounded like automatic gunfire.
“I heard it, looked out my window and immediately see people screaming, fleeing the scene,” Boshell said.
The shooting in the bustling and popular area was unnerving, he said. “I’m not sure scared is the right word. Just very disturbed that it was happening right outside where you are living.”
Ashton Mills, 24, who lives in a nearby apartment complex was headed to work Saturday night when she heard a “bunch of popping sounds.”
“It’s scary, especially as a single woman walking around the city,” she said. “I’m definitely a lot more on guard.”
Woodfin expressed frustration at what he described as an epidemic of gun violence in America.
“We find ourselves in 2024, where gun violence is at an epidemic level, an epidemic crisis in our country. And the city of Birmingham, unfortunately finds itself at the tip of that spear,” he said.
The Birmingham mayor also urged state and federal officials to give cities more tools to address gun violence. He put both hands behind his back to illustrate what it is like for cities to combat crime. Alabama last year abolished the requirement to get a permit to carry a concealed handgun in public.
Woodfun said there is an “element” in the city that is too comfortable carrying Glock switches — which convert semi-automatic handguns to deliver more rapid fire — and assault-style rifles with the intent of doing harm.
“Elected officials locally, statewide and nationally have a duty to solve this American crisis, this American epidemic of gun violence,” the mayor said.
It’s not the guns!!!! It’s the black and brown thugs shooting the guns. Change as many law as you want, if they aren’t following current laws what makes you think they will follow new ones????? Just give them more ammo to shoot each other.
100 shell casings on the side walk doesn’t seem to make it targeted hit. I would say it makes it a gangster style massacre of the normal street thug we have seen and read about for years. Has Chitcago moved to Alabama?
This was a gang ‘hit’. No need to waste money, resources, time on an ‘investigation’. Let them kill each other, have a ‘war of attrition’, and may the last man standing claim ‘victory’. The city will be rid of white trailer-trash, nigger crack-whores, and their baby-daddies. What’s to grieve?
Modifying a hand gun, or any gun to increase rapid fire or automatic fire is extremely illegal and penalties should be doubled. If someone is killed in this fashion, perp should be afforded the death penalty. If Alabama starts wholesale execution of those on death row, this may deter some young punks from thinking they are such bad a**ses. They are not. Because the perps, nor the victim’s ethnicity was stated, says it all.
Everyday when we turn on the news there is another story about things like this happening in America. We as citizens are not safe in our own country.