After the birthday party shooting in Alabama, 4 victims were identified

After four people were killed and 32 others, mostly teenagers, injured in a shooting at a 16th birthday party in a small Alabama city on Saturday night, people are back to work. work and school on Monday with no official word on who opened fire or why. .

On Monday night, Alabama Law Enforcement said police were still processing evidence and had recovered bullet casings from a shooting at the Mahogany Masterpiece dance studio in Dadeville, which has a population of about 3,000 and about 60 miles northeast of Montgomery. The agency said in a statement that no evidence of high-powered rifle ammunition was found.

Tallapoosa County Coroner Mike Knox on Monday identified the four deceased victims as 17-year-old Shaunkivia Nicole Smith, known as Keke; Philosopher Dowdell, 19 years old; Marsiah Emmanuel Collins, 19 years old; and Corbin Dahmontrey Holston, 23 years old.

Community leaders, including police, school officials and clergy members, describe the town as close. The shooting at around 10:34 p.m. Saturday disrupted that peaceful atmosphere. Officials did not say whether they had identified the suspect or suspect, made any arrests or figured out a motive.

Seven miles outside the city, on Highway 280, a digital billboard above a car dealership has become a roadside memorial. One image reads “Praying for Dadeville,” and the screen switches to images of the victims, including Alexis Dowdell kissing her brother Phil on the cheek and Keke Nicole Smith smiling on the sidelines of a game. play.

“Dadeville is a very small community. Heidi Smith, a spokeswoman for Lake Martin Community Hospital in Dadeville, said at a news conference Monday morning.

She said the hospital had treated 15 teenagers with gunshot wounds. Six people have been discharged and nine have been transferred to other hospitals. Of the nine people, five are in critical condition and four are in stable condition.

Ms. Smith said hospital staff had undergone training in shootings and other crises, but there was really no way to prepare.

“It’s traumatic in the healthcare setting, the emergency room, when you have a bullet wound through it,” Ms Smith said. “But when you’re 15 and they’re all teenagers – our employees have been through a lot.”

James Ryan, a native of Calera, Ala., who moved to Dadeville in 2016 and chose to stay there because he finds the city safe and quiet, lamented the violence taking the lives of young people.

Mr Ryan said: “I just hate this happening here. “Something has to be done about guns.”

The United States is one extreme exception for gun violence, especially in large numbers of young victims, compared with similarly large and wealthy countries. In 2020, gun violence has surpassed car accidents and illness to become the leading killer of children.

Dadeville has experienced a shooting with many victims in August 2016when five people were shot at a party at American Legion Hall, less than half a mile from the ballroom where the shooting took place on Saturday.

The ballroom is located in an old bank building in North Broadnax, a main street that runs through the downtown business district. On Monday morning, American and state flags were fluttering in city buildings, and the front doors of the Dadeville Public Library were draped in black and yellow ribbons, the colors of the local high school. direction.

Two of the teenagers killed were seniors at Dadeville High School. One of them, Shaunkivia Nicole Smith, is a volleyball player and the manager of the high school track and field team. Michelle Hutchins, a second cousin, said she will be celebrating her 18th birthday four days before graduation.

As the sun went down, Miss Hutchins knelt in front of one of the two windows on either side of the entrance to the building that houses the dance studio. Two bullet holes form a spider web on one of the windows.

“She is very athletic, very smart,” said Miss Hutchins. “She loves athletics and volleyball and always has a smile on her face.”

Michael Taylor, who coached the track and field team Miss Smith managed, say on sunday that the shooting happened at a birthday party for the sister of one of the victims, Philstavious Dowdell, a member of the school’s soccer team. Mr. Dowdell is committed to Jacksonville State University. The college football team head coach, Rich Rodriguez, said in a statement Dowdell was a “wonderful young man with a bright future.”

Mr. Taylor said Mr. Dowdell’s sister was a cheerleader who cheered for every sport in high school and many athletes had come to her party to celebrate.

The third victim, Corbin Dahmontrey Holston was play basketball and football at Dadeville High School. The fourth, 19-year-old Marsiah Emmanuel Collins, was play football at Opelika High School, about 26 miles southeast of Dadeville.

On Monday afternoon, Raven Tolbert, founder and owner of Mahogany Masterpiece, cut a banner displaying its name, saying she didn’t want people to focus on where the shooting happened.

Tolbert, 25, who grew up in Dadeville, founded the studio in April 2021 after graduating from her local high school and earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Auburn University in Montgomery. She said it was the kind of place she wished had existed as a girl.

The workshop moved to the old bank building last October. Ms Tolbert said it has hosted baby showers, receptions and other events, and it remains “the place for all things love, family and dancing.”

Still, she said, she was hurt like everyone else in her community.

“A lot of people keep asking me if I’m okay,” Ms. Tolbert said. “At first, I replied that I was fine, but I was not. And that’s what I’m saying to people right now: ‘I’m not fine, but I’ll be fine.’”

Claire Fahy contribution report. Susan C. Beach Contributing research.