September 23, 2024
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Authorities have reported no arrests after four people were killed and 17 others injured in what police described as a targeted “hit” by multiple shooters who opened fire outside a popular Alabama nightspot.
The shooting late Saturday in the popular Five Points South entertainment district of Birmingham rocked an area of restaurants and bars that is often bustling on weekend nights.
“The priority is to find these shooters and get them off our streets,” Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said a day after the shooting.
The mayor planned a morning news conference Monday to provide updates.
The shooting occurred on the sidewalk and street outside Hush, a lounge in the entertainment district, where blood stains were still visible on the sidewalk outside the venue on Sunday morning.
Police Chief Scott Thurmond said authorities believe the shooting targeted one of the people who was killed, possibly in a murder-for-hire. A vehicle pulled up and “multiple shooters” got out and began firing, then fled, he said.
“We believe that there was a ‘hit,’ if you will, on that particular person,” Thurmond said.
Police said about 100 shell casings were recovered. Thurmond said that law enforcement was working to determine what weapons were used. Investigators also were trying to determine whether anyone fired back, creating crossfire.
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.
Police identified the three victims found on the sidewalk as Anitra Holloman, 21, of the Birmingham suburb of Bessemer, Tahj Booker, 27, of Birmingham, and Carlos McCain, 27, of Birmingham. The fourth victim was pending identification.
By the early hours of Sunday, victims began showing up at hospitals, and police identified 17 people with injuries, some of them life-threatening. Four of the surviving victims, in conditions ranging from good to critical, were being treated at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital on Sunday afternoon, according to hospital spokesperson Alicia Rohan.
The area of Birmingham where the gunfire erupted is popular with young adults because of its proximity to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, restaurants and bars.
Three more people were shot, one fatally, elsewhere in Birmingham on Sunday night, and police said they were looking into whether it was connected to the shooting a day earlier, AL.com reported.
A man and woman were found unresponsive and taken to a hospital, where the man died, police said. The woman had life-threatening injuries. Police were working to confirm whether a third gunshot victim who arrived at a hospital in a private vehicle was shot in the same incident, Officer Truman Fitzgerald said.
