Police arrest suspect in Black Friday shooting at Alabama mall

(Reuters) – Police in Georgia on Thursday arrested a suspect in a shooting that wounded two people at an Alabama mall and left another man dead after he was apparently mistaken for the gunman during Black Friday sales, federal officials said.

The case drew wide attention after police in Alabama said an officer had killed the gunman at the Riverchase Galleria near Birmingham, but then said the dead man was likely not to blame and that the actual shooter remained at large.

Erron Brown, 20, was taken into custody in South Fulton, Georgia, a city about three hours east of Birmingham, according to Lynzey Donahue, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Marshals Service.

The police department in Hoover, where the shooting took place, said Brown faced charges of attempted murder and that the investigation was still ongoing.

“This is an important milestone in the continued work to find answers about what happened in last Thursday’s tragic incident,” the police department said in a statement.

There was chaos at the Riverchase Galleria last Thursday night when shots were fired, scattering shoppers who had been perusing the holiday sales.

A 12-year-old girl and an 18-year-old man were wounded, and then a uniformed Hoover Police Department officer shot and killed Emantic Bradford, 21, who was holding a handgun and who the officer believed was responsible for the shooting.

Gun rights advocates, including President Donald Trump, have suggested that having armed civilians in public places is an effective deterrent to crime. But police in Alabama on Monday said that Bradford, who was black, made the situation worse by drawing his gun.

Bradford’s death triggered a protest at the mall by activists, including the local chapter of Black Lives Matter. The officer who shot him has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency.

A representative from the agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Brown’s arrest.

Reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York; Editing by Dan Grebler and Sonya Hepinstall

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source: reuters.com