Sep 24, 2024

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How confident is Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond that authorities will bring the shooters from Saturday night's mass shooting outside a hookah bar to justice?

“We’re going to hunt you down and we’re going to arrest you,’’ he said. “100 percent.”

A plea made to the community in Birmingham -- you've heard it from the chief, from Mayor Randall Woodfin and many others -- is people get over their hesitance to come forward with information on a crime.

Incidentally, two of the four people who were killed in the shooting had previously faced murder charges. One was acquitted and the other has his charges dropped because, according to the prosecutors, witnesses were either dead, unavailable or not cooperating.

AL.com's Carol Robinson reports that, for Saturday's mass shooting, which injured 17 in addition to the four fatalities, dozens of tips came in over the weekend, and then 10 more came in when authorities announced a reward of up to $100,000 offered by the FBI and Crimestoppers.

Of those wounded in the shooting, five were still hospitalized at the end of the day yesterday, four with life-threatening injuries.

BPD said that while the victims certainly included innocent people who became collateral damage, police do believe it was a targeted hit on at least one of those killed.

The U.S. Department of Education has recognized this year's National Blue Ribbon Schools, and five Alabama schools are among the honorees, reports AL.com's Rebecca Griesbach.

Keep in mind that only 130 Alabama schools have reached Blue Ribbon status since 1982. Nationally, there were 356 recipients this year.

The Alabama schools: EPIC Alternative Elementary School in Birmingham, East Elementary School in Cullman, Carver School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology in Dothan, Crestline Elementary School in Hartselle and Brookwood Forest Elementary School in Mountain Brook.

Blue Ribbon awards are given to schools for high academic performance or progress in closing achievement gaps.

Here's a reversal on a story we had a few weeks ago.

It turns out that Jack Hawkins Jr. is not leaving Troy University after all, reports AL.com's Howard Koplowitz.

The man already has served as chancellor of the university 35 years, longer than any current university president, according to Troy. But after he announced his pending retirement three weeks ago, the university's board of trustees asked him to reconsider. He said he and his wife appreciated the sentiments during a board meeting, and he ended up accepting their offer to stay.

To illustrate how long Hawkins has been at Troy using the pop-culture timeline: He was named chancellor more than a year before America first heard Michael Corleone say "Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in."

A second-line parade and tropical shirts with Mobile as a backdrop? This has Jimmy Buffett written all over it, you might say.

And you'd be right. At the inaugural Son of a Sailor Fest this past weekend, we see the Blow House Brass Band lead lead the second line from the Riverview Plaza courtyard to Cathedral Square along Royal and Dauphin streets.

(Photo by Lawrence Specker)

“If we need the National Guard to come in here, I do want the governor just to be on standby. If something happens in Birmingham, if we get to the point where we cannot handle this crime, we will need some backup. That’s just a realization of where we are.”

State Rep. Juandalynn Givan, blaming Birmingham's rise in homicides partly on the short-staffing of the police department.

Later, Mayor Randall Woodfin's Facebook page featured a collage of photos of all the state lawmakers representing Jefferson County, thanking them “for working in partnership with City of Birmingham to address our public safety issues,” but over Givan's photo were the red words “not you.”

-1.5

That's the BetMGM line for the Georgia-Alabama football game. It's the first time since 2007 that Alabama is an underdog in a game at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

In 1994, reality star and former Miss Alabama USA Hannah Brown of Tuscaloosa.

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