Alabama capital rocked by ‘mass shooting’ as rival gunmen open fire in crowd

Rival gunmen shot at each other in a crowded downtown nightlife district in Alabama’s capital city on 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 hospitalised 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.