A major manhunt is under way in Birmingham, Alabama, for those responsible for a shooting at a nightclub late on Saturday night in which four people have died and 17 were wounded.
The violence is just the latest shocking incident that highlights the epidemic of gun violence and killings that continues to plague the US and yet prompts little to no political action.
The incident happened in a nightlife area in Birmingham according to police and news reports. At least four of the wounded victims are suffering life-threatening injuries, according to police.
Police said multiple victims in the mass killing were caught in crossfire and offered a reward for information leading to the arrest of those involved.
The shooting happened shortly after 11pm on Saturday in the city’s Five Points South entertainment district.
Officers arriving at the scene 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. A total of 21 people were shot, including these who were killed. More than 100 shell casings were found in the area, according to police.
Police said the shooting was not random and is believed to be an isolated incident.
The Birmingham police chief, Scott Thurmond, said at a news conference early on Sunday that multiple people pulled up to the nightclub in a vehicle, opened fire and then fled the scene. A preliminary investigation has led police to believe that the shooters were targeting one of the deceased victims, with the other victims caught in the crossfire.
“We believe there was a hit, if you will, on that particular person as far as someone willing to pay money to have that person killed,” Thurmond said.
Thurmond offers the victims and the families of victims his condolences. “That’s 21 people whose lives were forever changed, that’s 21 families, some were destroyed and some were just altered. Our hearts go out to them as we go through this.”
The Five Points South area of Birmingham has numerous entertainment venues, restaurants and bars and often is crowded on Saturday nights.
Police said there were no immediate arrests.
“We will do everything we possibly can to make sure we uncover, identify and hunt down whoever is responsible for preying on our people this morning,” Fitzgerald told WBMA.
This is the second mass shooting Birmingham has seen at local nightclubs since the start of the summer. In July, a shooting at a nightclub and outside a home killed nine people, including a child, and injured nine.
On Sunday, Randall Woodfin called on elected officials to pass gun safety regulation amid a violent summer in the city. Woodfin noted that the city once had a ban on assault weapons that expired in 2004. During the ban, Birmingham saw a decline in gun violence. But since its expiration, the use of assault weapons has made shootings in the city deadlier.
“Do not tell me this is not solvable. At the same time, do not tell me this is only on the police to solve,” Woodfin said at the press conference. “Elected officials – locally, statewide and nationally – have a duty to solve this American crisis, this American epidemic of gun violence.”
“You’ve got to give us the tools to solve these issues.”
The US has a high rate of mass shootings, which frequently prompts public calls for more substantial gun control. But the US federal government has generally been unwilling or unable to heed those calls.
The gun rights lobby remains strong in the US and its power over politicians who try to enforce tighter gun laws is formidable.
In June the conservative-dominated supreme court struck down a federal ban on “bump stocks”, accessories which can allow a semiautomatic gun to fire as fast as a machine gun. Following the 6-3 decision Joe Biden condemned the ruling, saying it “strikes down an important gun safety regulation”.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
