Topline
Two teenagers and a 20-year-old were arrested and charged in the Dadeville, Alabama, Sweet 16 mass shooting that left four people dead and 32 injured over the weekend, police announced Wednesday, after growing concern over how long the investigation was taking.
An Alabama state trooper checks his phone as investigators work at the site of a fatal shooting in … [+]
Key Facts
Burkett said information from the community was helpful in the investigation, and said the investigation was still in the early stages with a “tremendous amount of work left to be done.”
Both teenage suspects will be charged as adults, Michael Segrest, the District Attorney for the Fifth Judicial Circuit of Alabama, said, adding neither he nor the police would discuss the details of the case.
Ty Reik McCullough and Travis McCullough are from Tuskegee, a small city about 30 miles south of Dadeville, while Hill lives about 20 miles southeast of Dadeville in Auburn.
Police did not offer any details about a motive for the shooting or the suspects’ connection to the birthday party.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) applauded the arrests in a tweet Wednesday, saying “violent crime has NO place in Alabama” and calling the incident “horrific.”
Key Background
The shooting happened just after 10:30 p.m. Saturday at Mahogany’s Masterpiece dance studio in Dadeville where Alexis Dowdell was having her Sweet 16 birthday party. While police are often quick to provide information after many mass shootings, that wasn’t the case in Dadeville. It was ten hours before ALEA made a statement about the shooting, providing limited details. Burkett initially told reporters Sunday that the suspect was no longer a threat to the community, but walked back those remarks Monday and said he meant there was no threat at that time, in that area. On Monday ALEA said no high-powered rifle ammunition was found at the scene, but investigators did recover “numerous” shell casings used in handguns. Authorities initially said Sunday 28 people were injured, on Monday that number rose to 32, according to ALEA. As of Tuesday, nine of the 15 patients injured by gunshots and initially taken to Dadeville’s Lake Martin Community Hospital were still being treated at other facilities, four of those were in stable condition and five were in critical condition. Despite a lack of details on the shooting, the Tallapoosa County coroner has released the names of the four people who died in the shooting: Philstavious “Phil” Dowdell ,18, Marsiah Emmanuel Collins, 19, Shaunkivia “Keke” Nicole Smith, 17, and Corbin Dahmontrey Holston, 23.
Tangent
Saturday’s birthday party honored 16-year-old Alexis Dowdell. While Alexis Dowdell survived the shooting, her brother Phil Dowdell did not, but she credited her brother with saving her life. In an interview with the BBC, Alexis Dowdell said when the shooting began, her brother pushed her to the ground, and it wasn’t until she later went back inside that she discovered her brother was shot: “The last thing I told him was to stay strong,” she told the BBC. LaTonya Allen, the mother of the Dowdell siblings, was shot twice during the incident but survived. At one point during the party, Allen told CNN she heard a rumor that someone brought a gun to the celebration, she stopped the music, turned on the lights and made an announcement asking anyone with a gun to leave the party. The shooting started shortly thereafter.
Big Number
165. That’s how many mass shootings, defined as four or more injuries or deaths, have happened in the U.S. so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
Further Reading
Dadeville Shooting Leaves 4 Dead, 32 Injured: Here’s What We Know—And Don’t Know—About Alabama Mass Shooting (Forbes)
Alabama Shooting: 4 Killed, 28 Injured At Birthday Party In Dadeville (Forbes)
Over 200 Killed In U.S. Mass Shootings So Far This Year—A Decade-Long High (Forbes)
One In Five Americans Has Lost Family To Gun Violence As Shootings Tick Up (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/anafaguy/2023/04/19/three-suspects-including-two-teens-finally-arrested-in-alabama-mass-shooting/