« They just killed that black boy for no reason, » a witness said. « He probably got a gun license and everything. »
After dozens of people fled a Thanksgiving-evening shooting inside an Alabama shopping mall – stampeding through the food court and hiding inside stores – one woman told reporters she said a prayer as she ran: « Give the police wisdom and accuracy of shots. »
At first it seemed the prayer was answered. Police in Hoover, Alabama, soon announced they had secured the Riverchase Galleria and killed the gunman, who allegedly wounded two people during a dispute and then brandished a pistol at a uniformed officer.
Hoover’s mayor called the police heroes that night. « Thank God we had our officers very close, » Police Chief Nick Derzis told Al.com. « They heard the gunfire, they engaged the subject, and they took out the threat. »
By the next morning, the body of 21-year-old Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Jr. was at the medical examiner; an 18-year-old man and a 12-year-old bystander were being treated for bullet wounds at a hospital; and Alabama’s largest mall shopping was back open for business for Black Friday crowds.
And then a WBRC reporter posted a photo of a pistol on the floor of the Santa’s Village display – one of several things police apparently missed that night, including the actual shooter.
« New evidence now suggests that while Mr. Bradford may have been involved in some aspect of the altercation, he likely did not fire the rounds that injured the 18-year-old victim, » police said in a statement Friday night, as they announced that the state would be taking over the investigation.
What police at first described as a fight between Bradford and the teenager that escalated to gunfire, during which a young girl was shot in the back, now appears to be something else.
