Shooting after Alabama football game leaves 1 dead, 8 injured

A mass shooting outside a football game in Alabama on Saturday killed one person and injured eight others, police said.

The shooting happened outside Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama, after the annual “Magic City Classic” football game. Police Chief Michael Pickett said most spectators and families had already left the stadium property when shots rang out. The shooting, he said, happened nearby, where vendors were set up along Graymont Avenue.

Pickett said it was a “completely senseless act of violence” and that he was “very grateful that more people weren’t injured.”

“This is something that we not only just see here in Birmingham, but we see it all over the nation,” he said. “And it’s important that we, as a community, address this issue.”

The circumstances of the shooting were unclear.

Police spokesperson De’Rell Freeman said one person had been detained and transported to police headquarters for questioning, and “multiple weapons” had been found and secured.

Alabama State and Alabama A&M are historically Black universities and archrivals whose annual contest has been played for more than 100 years. Nearly 70,000 fans attended Saturday’s game, won by Alabama A&M 31-28. The event draws some of the largest crowds in the country for games played in their college football division.

The Magic City Classic has such a deep history that Alabama State coach Eddie Robinson Jr., a former NFL linebacker and alumnus of the school, proposed creating a Hall of Fame for the game.

The shooting in Alabama was among several violent incidents nationwide on Halloween weekend.

In Dallas, three shootings unfolded within minutes of each other, leaving four people dead and five others with injuries in the downtown Deep Ellum neighborhood, CBS News Texas reported.

And in Newark, Delaware, six people were shot shortly after 11:10 p.m. Saturday near the University of Delaware campus, Newark police Lt. Greg D’Elia said. All six were taken to hospitals for treatment. Video shared on social media showed people running for safety from the scene. One stretch of the city’s Main Street was closed for several hours after the shooting.

A shooting early Sunday in Bloomington, Illinois, left a 19-year-old woman dead and another woman in critical condition. Six others had injuries that were not life-threatening but it was unclear from a statement by the city’s police department and McLean County Coroner’s Office if those people had gunshot wounds. The shooting happened near the campus of Illinois Wesleyan University. Bloomington is about 135 miles southwest of Chicago.

And in Fayetteville, Arkansas, six people were taken to hospitals with gunshot wounds from a shooting that happened early Sunday. No arrests have been made, police said in a news release. A preliminary investigation indicates an altercation preceded the shooting.

On Friday, two people were killed in separate shootings at Spirit Halloween stores in California and Michigan.