At least 4 killed and 18 injured in Alabama

A manhunt has been launched for “multiple shooters” who killed four and injured 18 more when they “fired upon a large group of people,” in Birmingham, Alabama, police said early Sunday.

Police Chief Scott Thurmond said that multiple people pulled up in a vehicle, got out and opened fire before getting back inside the vehicle to flee the scene. A total of 21 people were shot, including the four people killed.

The chief did not release the identities of any suspects, but Thurmond said a preliminary investigation led police to believe the shooters were targeting one person.

“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.

That individual, who was not identified by police, was among those killed in the shooting. Thurmond added that investigators believe the shooters may have used a fully-automatic weapon, which is illegal.

Thurmond urged anyone with information to come forward, assuring the public they can offer tips anonymously.

Photo and video posted to social media following the shooting showed at least two individuals apparently injured on the ground outside, as well as some people’s emotional yelling as they awaited medics.

At least four of the wounded have “life-threatening injuries,” Birmingham Police Department officer Truman Fitzgerald told a news conference hours after the incident, which he said occurred in one of the city’s “most popular entertainment districts.”

Fitzgerald said officers arrived on the scene shortly after 11 p.m. Saturday “when they observed two adult males and one adult female who was unresponsive on the sidewalk suffering from a gunshot wound.”

Medics pronounced them “dead at the scene,” he said, adding that the fourth victim was pronounced dead at the nearby UAB hospital.  The hospital said it treated a total of 12 people.

“There’s no one in custody,” Fitzgerald said. “Rest assured, we are going to do everything we possibly can to make sure that we uncover, identify and hunt down who was ever responsible for preying on our people,” he added.

Police also urged businesses with security cameras in the area to check their footage and provide anything relevant to investigators.

The department said it was working with the FBI and ATF on the investigation.

It is the second mass shooting in the city this year. In July, four people were killed at a nightclub.

Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin made an impassioned plea for change, saying the city saw a steep decline in gun violence following a ban on assault weapons in the 1994. But Woodfin added that violent crime saw an uptick following the ban’s expiration 10 years later.

Since the ban was lifted, the style of weapons used in gun related crimes has changed to create an increased scale of firearm homicides, Woodfin said.

“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 Sunday morning. “Elected officials — locally, statewide and nationally — have a duty to solve this American crisis, this American epidemic of gun violence.”