Four people were killed and at least 18 others wounded in a shooting late Saturday outside a nightclub in Birmingham, Ala.
Multiple shooters pulled up in a vehicle, hopped out and unleashed gunfire on a crowd of people in the city’s Five Points South entertainment district, police said.
The attackers then jumped back in the vehicle and sped off, according to authorities. No suspects were in custody by Sunday afternoon and investigators did not publicly identify any people of interest.
The four victims were publicly identified only as three men and one woman. Investigators said the shooting was likely targeted at one person but the assailants fired into a large crowd anyway.
Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond said the shooters may have been hired to kill a specific person, according to local Fox affiliate WBRC. Cops believe the intended target was among the dead.
“Detectives believe the shooting was not random and stemmed from an isolated incident where multiple victims were caught in the crossfire,” officer Truman Fitzgerald said in a statement.
Bystanders are seen in Five Points South entertainment district after a shooting in Birmingham.
Cops responded to reports of gunfire around 11 p.m. near a stretch of bars, restaurants and clubs in Birmingham’s Five Points South district, which is often crowded on Saturday nights.
By the time officers arrived, the suspects had fled and numerous people were lying wounded on the sidewalk and street.
“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 said. “These mass shootings have more to do with culture than criminality.”
Police asked anyone with information on the shooting to come forward and aid the investigation. Investigators confirmed the shooters used fully automatic weapons and more than 100 bullet casings were found at the scene, WBRC reported.
Mayor Randall Woodfin implied in a Facebook post that the shooters used Glock switches to convert semi-automatic handguns into fully automatic weapons. Glock switches are illegal at the federal level but there is no state law banning them in Alabama.