The mass shooting outside a popular Alabama bar that left four dead and more than a dozen others injured may have been a murder-for-hire “hit” job, cops said — as the manhunt for the gunmen intensified.
Authorities believe the shooting that erupted at a popular hookah bar in Birmingham’s busy Five Points South entertainment district late Saturday was a targeted hit after “multiple shooters” were spotted jumping out of a vehicle, opening fire and then fleeing.
“We believe that there was a ‘hit,’ if you will, on that particular person,” Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond said.
Three of the victims — Anitra Holloman, 21; Tahj Booker, 27; and Carlos McCain, 27 — were pronounced dead at the scene after they were found on a sidewalk with gunshot wounds.
The fourth victim, who police haven’t named publicly pending identification, was pronounced dead at a hospital.
It wasn’t immediately clear which victim was the apparent intended target.
By the early hours of Sunday, scores of victims began showing up at various hospitals and police subsequently identified 17 people with injuries, some of them life-threatening, from the shooting.
Meanwhile, police said about 100 shell casings had been recovered from the scene.
Investigators are still trying to determine what weapons were used, but they believe some of the gunfire was “fully automatic,” Thurmond said.
Authorities are also working to nail down whether anyone fired back, creating a crossfire.
Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said the main focus now was tracking down the suspects.
“The priority is to find these shooters and get them off our streets,” Woodfin said a day after the shooting.
The mayor, who is planning to hold a news conference Monday to provide updates on the case, expressed frustration at what he described as an epidemic of gun violence in the wake of the latest bloodshed.
“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.
With Post wires