In brief
In a chaotic incident in downtown Montgomery, Alabama, rival gunmen exchanged gunfire late Saturday, leaving two people dead and injuring 12 others. Authorities are investigating the circumstances surrounding the shooting that occurred near significant landmarks shortly after a college football game.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Rival gunmen shot at each other in a crowded downtown nightlife district in Alabama’s capital city Saturday night, killing two people and injuring 12 others in a chaotic street scene that left authorities trying to find out who started it, police said.
The dead included a 43-year-old woman, identified by police as Shalanda Williams, and a 17-year-old identified as Jeremiah Morris. Five of the wounded were hospitalized with life-threatening injuries, including a juvenile, Montgomery police said.
No one had been arrested as of Sunday afternoon as police appealed to the public for information and sorted through a complicated crime scene that involved multiple people firing weapons in a crowd just after the Tuskegee University-Morehouse College rivalry football game ended blocks away.
“We’re gonna do whatever we can not only to arrest those responsible, we’re going to do whatever to arrest those connected in any way, who knew what may have happened, who knew what could take place,” Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed told a Sunday news conference. “We’re not going just to stop with those folks that were pulling the trigger last night.”
The shooters “had no regard for human life,” he said.
Police were reviewing surveillance video, interviewing witnesses and potential suspects and trying to piece together a motive for why the shooting started.
Police were called around 11:30 p.m. to a scene described by Montgomery Police Chief James Graboys as a “mass shooting” that broke out near the Hank Williams Museum, the Rosa Parks Museum and the Alabama Statehouse, within earshot of officers on routine patrol in downtown Montgomery.
The shooting began when someone targeted one of the 14 victims, prompting multiple people to pull their own weapons and start firing back, Graboys said.
“This was two parties involved that were basically shooting at each other in the middle of a crowd,” Graboys said.
The shooters, he said, “did not care about the people around them when they did it.”
Seven of the 14 victims were under 20, and the youngest was 16, Graboys said. At least two of the victims were armed, he added. Multiple weapons and shell cases were recovered from the scene.
It was a particularly busy weekend in Montgomery, with Alabama State University’s homecoming football game that day at Hornet Stadium and the Alabama National Fair ongoing at Garrett Coliseum, compounding the crowd density at the time of the incident.
Reed said there were police patrols within 50 feet (15 meters) when the shooting broke out. One officer was so quick to arrive on the scene that he transported a victim to the hospital before an ambulance arrived, Graboys said.