MONTGOMERY, Alabama: Rival gunmen shot at each other in a crowded downtown nightlife district in Alabama’s capital city Saturday night, killing two people and injuring 12 others in a chaotic street scene that left authorities trying to find out who started it, police said.
The dead included a 43-year-old woman, identified by police as Shalanda WIlliams, and a 17-year-old identified as Jeremiah Morris. Five of the wounded were hospitalized with life-threatening injuries, including a juvenile, Montgomery police said.
No one had been arrested as of Sunday afternoon as police appealed to the public for information and sorted through a complicated crime scene that involved multiple people firing weapons in a crowd just after the Tuskegee University-Morehouse College rivalry football game ended blocks away.
“We’re gonna do whatever we can not only to arrest those responsible, we’re going to do whatever to arrest those connected in any way, who knew what may have happened, who knew what could take place,” Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed told a Sunday news conference. “We’re not going just to stop with those folks that were pulling the trigger last night.”
The shooters “had no regard for human life,” he said.
Police were reviewing surveillance video, interviewing witnesses and potential suspects and trying to piece together a motive for why the shooting started.
Police were called around 11:30 p.m. to what Montgomery Police Chief James Graboys described as a “mass shooting” that broke out near the Hank Williams Museum, the Rosa Parks Museum and the Alabama Statehouse, within earshot of officers on routine patrol in downtown Montgomery.
The shooting began when someone targeted one of the 14 victims, prompting multiple people to pull their own weapons and start firing back, Graboys said.
“This was two parties involved that were basically shooting at each other in the middle of a crowd,” Graboys said.
The shooters, he said, “did not care about the people around them when they did it.”
Seven of the 14 victims were under 20, and the youngest was 16, Graboys said. At least two of the victims were armed, Graboys said.
Multiple weapons and shell cases were recovered from the scene, Graboys said.
Few other details were available.
It was a particularly busy weekend in Montgomery, with Alabama State University’s homecoming football game that day at Hornet Stadium, the Alabama National Fair ongoing at Garrett Coliseum and the Tuskegee University-Morehouse College game having just ended at nearby Cramton Bowl.
Reed said there were police patrols within 50 feet (15 meters) when the shooting broke out. One officer was so quick to arrive on the scene that he transported a victim to the hospital before an ambulance arrived, Graboys said.
Gunmen kill two, injure 12 in a shootout in a crowd in Alabama capital city’s downtown
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Gunmen kill two, injure 12 in a shootout in a crowd in Alabama capital city’s downtown
- Shootout began when someone targeted one of the 14 victims, prompting multiple people to pull their own weapons and start firing back, say police
- The dead included a 43-year-old woman and a 17-year-old male. Five of the wounded were hospitalized with life-threatening injuries, including a juvenile
Ukraine, China mineral dominance on agenda as G7 meets
- There will also be discussions on Sudan, gripped by a war since April 2023
- China’s dominance of critical mineral supply chains is a growing area of concern for the G7
NIAGRA-ON-THE-LAKE: G7 foreign ministers were gathering in Canada on Tuesday for talks expected to focus on Ukraine, as the club of industrialized democracies seeks a path toward ending the four-year-old conflict.
Options to fund Kyiv’s war needs against invasion by Russia could feature prominently at the talks in Canada’s Niagara region on the US border.
The diplomats are meeting after US President Donald Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies in October, slamming Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the conflict.
Trump has also pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine.
Ukraine is enduring devastating Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure, but Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand stopped short of promising concrete outcomes to aid Kyiv at the Niagara talks.
She told AFP a priority for the meeting was broadening discussion beyond the Group of Seven, which includes Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.
“For Canada, it is important to foster a multilateral conversation, especially now, in such a volatile and complicated environment,” Anand said.
Representatives from Saudi Arabia, India, Brazil, Australia, South Africa, Mexico and South Korea will also be at the meeting held a short drive from the iconic Niagara Falls.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will hold bilateral talks with Anand on Wednesday, the second and final day of the G7 meeting.
Anand said she did not expect to press the issue of Trump’s trade war, which has forced Canadian job losses and squeezed economic growth.
“We will have a meeting and have many topics to discuss concerning global affairs,” Anand told AFP.
“The trade issue is being dealt with by other ministers.”
Trump abruptly ended trade talks with Canada last month — just after an apparently cordial White House meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney.
The president has voiced fury over an ad, produced by Ontario’s provincial government, which quoted former US president Ronald Reagan on the harm caused by tariffs.
- Sudan, Critical minerals -
Italy’s foreign ministry said there will also be discussions on Sudan, gripped by a war since April 2023 that has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Delivering aid to the war-ravaged African country will be a focus of the talks, which come hours after UN humanitarian coordinator Tom Fletcher met with Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan on getting life-saving supplies to civilians.
The G7’s top diplomats are meeting two weeks after the grouping’s energy secretaries agreed on steps to counter China’s dominance of critical mineral supply chains, a growing area of concern for the world’s industrialized democracies.
Beijing has established commanding market control over the refining and processing of various minerals — especially the rare earth materials needed for the magnets that power sophisticated technologies.
The G7 announced an initial series of joint projects last month to ramp up refining capacity that excludes China.
While the United States was not party to any of those initial deals, the Trump administration has signaled alignment with its G7 partners.
A State Department official told reporters ahead of the Niagara meet that critical mineral supply chains would be “a major point of focus.”
“There’s a growing global consensus among a lot of our partners and allies that economic security is national security,” the official said.
