City Council meets over shooting at Alabama mall

HOOVER, Ala. — City leaders met privately Tuesday after days of protests after the shooting of a black man by a police officer in a possible case of mistaken identity.

The Hoover City Council met privately to discuss the “legal ramifications” of pending litigation, Council President Gene Smith said. Smith didn’t elaborate on any potential lawsuit. But the session comes just five days after a Hoover police officer shot and killed a man inside Alabama’s largest shopping mall on Thanksgiving night.

Relatives of the shooting victim, 21-year-old Emantic “EJ” Bradford Jr., have been represented by a civil-rights lawyer since his death.

A Hoover police officer, responding to a report of a shooting in the mall, shot and killed Bradford. Police initially described Bradford as the person who shot a teen that evening. They retracted that statement and said evidence indicated Bradford was not the gunman who shot the teen and a 12-year-old bystander.

On Monday, police said that Bradford had a gun in his hand “during the seconds following the gunshots, which instantly heightened the sense of threat to approaching police officers responding to the chaotic scene.”

Emantic Bardford Sr., a former longtime employee of the Birmingham Police Department jail, said his son had a permit to carry a handgun. The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency on Tuesday declined to answer whether Bradford had a permit, citing the ongoing investigation.