John Jefferson
Gunmen opened up fire at a Birmingham, Alabama, hookah lounge that killed four people and injured 17. (WVTM/YouTube).
A group of alleged hitmen got out of a vehicle and opened up fire at a hookah lounge in Birmingham, Alabama, and killed their intended target along with three other bystanders caught in the hail of bullets, according to police. In addition, 17 other people suffered bullet wounds in the mass shooting at the popular nightlife district, cops say.
The gunmen remain at large, Birmingham police Chief Scott Thurmond told reporters at a press conference Sunday morning. It happened around 11 p.m. Saturday outside Hush, a hookah and cigar lounge on Magnolia Avenue in Five Points South. Thurmond said the investigation is still in its early stages, but cops have been able to determine the shooting was targeted.
“We believe there was a hit, if you will, on that particular person, where someone was willing to pay money to have that person killed,’’ he said.
Police recovered over 100 shell casings from what Thurmond described as automatic firearms. Thurmond did not expand on the motive for the alleged hit, but said the shooters had been looking for their target who happened to be at the hookah lounge.
“It wasn’t the location, it was the person, so wherever the person was was where it was going to take place,’’ Thurmond said. “Wherever they can catch that individual. That’s just where they happened to catch them.”
After the shooting, the suspects drove away. Paramedics rushed the victims to various hospitals. Police did not give reporters updated conditions on the surviving victims. No names have been released.
“To the victims and their families, our heartfelt condolences go out to them,” said Thurmond. “That’s 21 people’s whose lives were forever changed. That’s 21 families who some were destroyed and some were forever altered.”
One of the survivors described the chaos in an interview with AL.com. Gabriel Eslami, 24, was waiting to get into the bar with some friends from high school when all of a sudden shots rang out.
“In my mind, when it first started happening, I thought they were just shooting at people in the front of the line, but they were shooting up the line,’’ he said.
He then began to run and suffered a gunshot wound to the left buttocks.
“I look back and it’s just gun smoke and peoples bodies laid out on the pavement,’’ he said. “My car was parked out front and there was blood all over my car from other people.”
Eslami said a friend of his, who suffered a graze wound to the arm, rushed him to the hospital.
Anyone with information is asked to submit evidence to the Birmingham Police Department’s evidence submission portal or call Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777.
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