Search underway for suspects in Alabama mass shooting that killed 4 and injured 17

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Authorities have reported no arrests after a weekend mass shooting killed four people and left 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 mass shooting, one of several this year in the city, unnerved residents and left officials at home and beyond pleading for help 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 morning news conference Monday to provide updates on the case.

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.

Birmingham 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 the scene, 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 law enforcement was working to determine what weapons were used, but they believe some of the gunfire was “fully automatic.” Investigators also were trying to determine whether anyone fired back, creating a crossfire.

In a statement late Sunday, police said the shooters are believed to have used “machine gun conversion devices” that make semiautomatic weapons fire more rapidly.

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 pronounced dead at the hospital was pending identification.

By the early hours of Sunday, victims began showing up at hospitals and police subsequently 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 Alicia Rohan, a hospital spokeswoman.

The area of Birmingham where the gunfire erupted is popular with young adults because of its proximity to the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the plethora of nearby restaurants and bars.

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

Three of the nation’s 23 mass shootings this year were in Birmingham, including two earlier quadruple homicides.

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

“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.

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

CORRECTS DATE hat appears to be a bullet hole is visible in the window of Hush, a hookah and cigar lounge, in Birmingham, Ala. on Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024, the day after a mass shooting took place. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler)

Blood stains were visible on the sidewalk outside of a nightclub in Birmingham, Ala. on Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024, after a mass shooting took place. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler)

A firefighter cleans blood stains off the sidewalk outside a nightclub in Birmingham, Ala. on Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024, after a mass shooting took place. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler)

This image provided by WBMA shows police tape near the scene of a shooting in Birmingham, Ala., Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (Bill Castle/WBMA via AP)

This image provided by WBMA shows police working on the scene of a shooting in Birmingham, Ala., Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (Bill Castle/WBMA via AP)

Drops of blood remain at the scene of a fatal Saturday night shooting in the Five Points neighborhood of Birmingham, Ala., Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Vasha Hunt)

This image provided by WBMA shows police and emergency vehicles in the entertainment district after a shooting in Birmingham, Ala., Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (Bill Castle/WBMA via AP)

The scene of a fatal Saturday night shooting outside Hush, a hookah lounge, in the Five Points neighborhood of Birmingham, Ala., Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Vasha Hunt)

Search underway for suspects in Alabama mass shooting that killed 4 and injured 17

Search underway for suspects in Alabama mass shooting that killed 4 and injured 17

This image provided by WBMA shows bystanders near the scene of a shooting in Birmingham, Ala., Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (Bill Castle/WBMA via AP)

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Pakistani Taliban on Monday denied involvement in a bombing attack on a police convoy that was escorting foreign ambassadors in the restive northwest, as authorities said they were still trying to determine who was behind it.

Most of the ambassadors and senior envoys were traveling with their family members on Sunday to the Swat Valley, a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban, when the attack occurred in Malam Jabba, one of Pakistan’s two ski resorts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but Mohammad Khurasani, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, denied detonating the improvised explosive device that hit a police vehicle accompanying the convoy.

A police officer was killed and four others were wounded in the attack, which drew strong condemnation from Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and other officials.

The envoys were all unharmed, but the attack suggested there was a security breach.

“For sure it was a security breach because the convoy's route was only known to police, and the bomb disposal unit had reportedly cleared the route,” said Abdullah Khan, a defense analyst and managing director of the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies.

“Some insider (appears to have) leaked the information about the travel plans of the foreign ambassadors to the militants," he added.

Khan said the attack signaled a shift in the approach of insurgents, who previously targeted security forces.

Pakistani defense analyst Syed Muhammad Ali said there was a need for better coordination between federal authorities and police about such high-profile visits to the northwest, which has witnessed a surge in violence.

Those traveling in the convoy were ambassadors and officials from Indonesia, Portugal, Kazakhstan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, Iran, Russia and Tajikistan. All of them later returned to the capital, Islamabad, according to Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In a statement, TTP said it had nothing to do with the attack. TTP is a separate group but also a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in neighboring Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final stages of their pullout from the country after 20 years of war.

Many TTP leaders and fighters have found sanctuary and have even been living openly in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover, which also emboldened the Pakistani Taliban. The situation has strained relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan's Taliban government, which says it does not allow anyone to use its soil for attacks against any country.

Authorities were investigating to determine whether there was a security breach, since details about the convoy's travel plans had been circulated only to officials. Authorities said they were also collecting information to determine who planted the IED device along the route.

Mohammad Ali Khan, a senior police officer, said that so far no arrest had been made.

Sunday's attack came months after a suicide bomber in northwestern Pakistan rammed his explosive-laden car into a vehicle, killing five Chinese nationals and their Pakistani driver in Shangla, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The Chinese victims were construction workers and engineers who were working on Dasu Dam, the biggest hydropower project in Pakistan. Since then, Pakistan has beefed up security for foreigners and envoys traveling in the region.

Associated Press writer Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan contributed to this report.

Vehicles drive past a damaged police vehicle, foreground, which was escorting a convoy of foreign diplomats, at the site of a fatal bomb explosion on a road near Malam Jabba, a tourist area in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Sherin Zada)

People gather near a damaged police vehicle which was escorting a convoy of foreign diplomats, at the site of a fatal bomb explosion on a road near Malam Jabba, a tourist area in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Sherin Zada)