Gunfire kills man, wounds two at mall

HOOVER, Ala. — Police responding to a fight inside an Alabama shopping mall shot and killed a man who had brandished a weapon, authorities said Friday. Two other people were injured, including a 12-year-old girl.

The Hoover Police Department said in a statement that two men were engaged in a “physical altercation” at the glitzy Riverchase Galleria in Hoover late Thursday, when one of the men pulled out a handgun and shot the other man twice.

Two officers who were providing security at the mall heard the gunfire and approached the area. They spotted a suspect waving a pistol and shot him. He died at the scene. The Jefferson County coroner’s office identified him as 21-year-old Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Jr. of Hueytown.

The other shooting victim was an 18-year-old man from Birmingham. He was taken to a nearby hospital in serious condition. A 12-year-old bystander was also shot and taken to Children’s Hospital by a Hoover Fire Department rescue squad. Hoover police said Friday morning that the girl was in stable condition.

Police said the fight happened on the mall’s second floor concourse area, near the entrance to the Footaction shoe store. Capt. Greg Rector said at a news conference that investigators do not know what sparked the original confrontation between the men.

Video posted on social media by shoppers showed a chaotic scene as shoppers fled the mall, which closed for the remainder of Thursday night. It reopened at 6 a.m. Friday.

AP Authorities respond after reports of shots fired at the Riverchase Galleria in Hoover, a Birmingham, Ala., suburb, in this image made Thursday from a video provided by ABC 33/40. A man was shot and killed by police after a fight at the mall ahead of Black Friday shopping resulted in gunfire that injured several.