Yet another mass shooting. 4 dead, 17 injured. No suspects in custody.
Puzzlegal edited the title and added a breaking news tag. (There are several "Birmingham"s in the US and elsewhere. And “mass” is also the abbreviation for a state. )
Apparently a case of gang warfare. There has been apparently a case of retaliation since this shooting:
I live in Birmingham, so just adding a bit of local color.
Five Points South is the heart of Southside, which is a popular entertainment district. (The 1986 song “Jacob’s Ladder” by Huey Lewis & the News mentions Southside in its opening stanza.) A large number of restaurants – some nationally recognized – and bars are in the area. Crime happens there, but it’s typically non-violent. The rougher areas of the city tend to be focused in the north and west.
The site of the shooting is just a few blocks away from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Sadly, shootings and violence in general aren’t unusual for Birmingham. At one time the city had the highest per-capita murder rate in the nation (and may still, I’m not sure), and this is the third time this year at least four people have died in shootings.
Darn strange that this case is still unresolved.
Is it any cold comfort that this wasn’t a “spree” shooting of random strangers by a deranged nut? Murder is murder, but gang violence by career criminals would seem to be at least more pedestrian.
Given that it appears to have been a murder-for-hire, rather than just an angry or crazy person shooting up a nightclub, it’s apparently a complex investigation. This article from AL.com (an Alabama news site) indicates that the police (a) appear to know more than they have disclosed publicly, and (b) they are working with federal authorities, which again, suggests that this isn’t just a straightforward case.
Beyond that, honestly, it’s not “darn strange” that a major shooting incident, in which the suspects successfully left the scene, has not been resolved just a few days later.