15-year-old girl killed, young boy wounded in domestic shooting at downtown Birmingham apartment

A 15-year-old girl was killed and her young brother wounded when police say a man fired into a downtown Birmingham apartment during domestic discord.

The deadly shooting happened before 12:30 p.m. in the 500 block of 25th Street North. That location is Park Place apartments.

Officers were called to the apartment earlier Wednesday, Chief Scott Thurmond confirmed. They responded to a domestic disturbance, which was verbal not physical.

Thurmond said there have been previous domestic calls at the apartment.

Hours later, sometime before 12:30 p.m., police said the ex-boyfriend of the woman who lived in the apartment returned. He stood in the parking lot and opened fire.

Witnesses said they heard three to four shots and then saw the suspect running away.

The 15-year-old girl was pronounced dead on the scene. The 5-year-old boy was shot in the leg, and transported to Children’s of Alabama.

The children’s mother, who is pregnant, was later transported by Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service to an area hospital for observation.

The suspect, whose identity is being withheld pending formal charges, was taken into custody Wednesday afternoon after a brief manhunt in Woodlawn.

‘‘It’s just a very heinous situation,’' Thurmond said. “ We have kids out of school, trying to enjoy the summer and we’ve got someone so angry they believe they have to take violence into their hands and shoot into an apartment.”

“A young innocent life is lost,’' the chief said, “and it’s absolutely ridiculous.”

“We continue to see these things in our city over and over again,’' Thurmond continued. “It’s people who know each other and it’s just really sad to see these continues.”

The chief praised the swift arrest of the suspect.

“This shows when the Birmingham Police Department gets information and can act on it, how quickly we get people off the streets and in custody to make our city safer,’' he said. “There’s a lot of men and women who worked hard today to get this individual off the streets of Birmingham and I’m extremely proud of them and I can’t thank them enough for their sacrifice and their hard work everyday.”

The young victim is Birmingham’s 70th homicide this year. Of those, seven have been ruled justifiable and therefore aren’t deemed criminal.

In all of Jefferson County, there have been 93 homicides including the 70 in Birmingham.