Someone unleashed a barrage of a gunfire on a sedan outside a Birmingham Family Dollar Friday afternoon, sending a 22-year-old man with multiple gunshot wounds to the hospital.
The drive-by shooting happened around 3:15 p.m. Friday at 2224 Bessemer Road. Police say it was a targeted attack.
The call to police went out as three people shot, including a child.
However, police said the victim — in a car with a 6-month-old girl and the child’s grandmother at the time of the shooting — was the only person shot.
The Chrysler 300 was parked in the handicap slot outside of the Family Dollar, which is next to the Food Giant in Five Points West.
Investigators marked more than 51 shell casings in the parking lot. The Chrysler appeared to be the only vehicle struck.
The victim was in the back seat when he was shot.
He was taken to UAB Hospital in critical condition.
The child was not injured but had blood on her, which led the first officers on the scene to believe she may have been injured.
The girl’s grandmother sustained a graze wound and was hit by shattered glass but refused to go to the hospital.She was up and walking around with no visible injuries.
The suspect fled in a vehicle.
Birmingham officers bought diapers and other supplies for the baby, and kept her in an air-conditioned police car until her mother arrived at the scene and took her home.
No arrests have been made. Investigators hope there will be plenty of surveillance footage since the shooting happened in the middle of a busy business district.
Officer Truman Fitzgerald addressed the boldness of the shooting.
“It just speaks to the criminal element that we have in Birmingham, that you would pull up to a car … you fire shots, you hit a young male, almost kill him, almost kill a 6-month-old child that had nothing to do with the situation and almost kill an older person who also had nothing to do with this situation,’’ he said.
“It goes against everything we’re working for as a city,’’ he said. “It’s by the grace of God that we don’t have three people dead.”
Anyone with information is asked to call Birmingham police at 205-254-1764 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777.
Source : Al.
