«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.
