Search underway for suspects in Alabama mass shooting that left 4 people dead and 17 injured

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (AP) — Authorities have reported no arrests following a mass shooting over the weekend that left four people dead and 17 others injured. Police described the incident as a targeted “hit” by several gunmen who opened fire outside a popular Alabama nightspot.

The shooting late Saturday in Birmingham's popular Five Points South entertainment district rocked an area full of restaurants and bars that is often busy on weekends. The mass shooting, one of several in the city this year, unsettled residents and prompted officials to ask for help at the home and elsewhere 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 a day after the shooting.

The mayor planned a press conference for Monday to provide an update on the case.

The shooting occurred on the sidewalk and street in front of Hush, a lounge in the entertainment district, where bloodstains were still visible on the sidewalk in front of the establishment Sunday morning.

Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond said authorities believe the shots were aimed at one of the people killed, possibly in a contract killing. A vehicle stopped, “several shooters” got out and started shooting. They then fled the scene, he said.

“We believe this person is a 'murder,'” Thurmond said.

Police said about 100 shell casings were recovered. Thurmond said police are working to determine what weapons were used, but they believe some of the shots were “fully automatic.” Investigators are also trying to determine whether someone fired back, causing crossfire.

A statement late Sunday said the shooters were believed to have used “machine gun conversion devices” that increase the rate of fire of semi-automatic weapons.

Officers found two men and a woman with gunshot wounds on a sidewalk and pronounced them dead there. Another male gunshot victim was pronounced dead at the 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, who was pronounced dead at the hospital, is still awaiting identification.

The first victims began arriving at hospitals in the early hours of Sunday morning, and police identified 17 people with injuries, some of them life-threatening. Four of the surviving victims, whose conditions ranged from good to critical, were being treated at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital on Sunday afternoon, according to Alicia Rohan, a hospital spokeswoman.

The Birmingham neighborhood where the shooting occurred is popular with young adults because it is close to the University of Alabama at Birmingham and has numerous restaurants and bars nearby.

The shooting was the 31st mass killing in 2024, with 23 of those cases being shootings, according to James Alan Fox, a criminologist and professor at Northeastern University who maintains a mass killing database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with the university.

Three of the 23 mass shootings in the country this year occurred in Birmingham, including two previous quadruple homicides.

Woodfin expressed his frustration with what he described as an epidemic of gun violence in America and the city.

“We are in the year 2024, where gun violence has reached epidemic proportions, an epidemic crisis in our country. And the city of Birmingham is unfortunately at the forefront of that spearhead,” he said.

Associated Press writer Jonathan Mattise in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed to this report.