Plan B Forum

Alabama mall gunman still at large after police say armed man killed by officer 'likely did not fire' shots

(CNN)An armed 21-year-old man killed by an officer at a mall in Alabama on Thanksgiving night "likely did not fire" the shots that wounded two people and sent terrified shoppers running for cover, police said Friday.

Authorities initially thought Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Jr., known as E.J., had fired the rounds at the Riverchase Galleria in Hoover that left an 18-year-old and a 12-year-old hospitalized, Hoover police spokesman Capt. Gregg Rector said in a statement.

At first, police said Bradford opened fire after an altercation with the 18-year-old and an officer fatally shot him as he fled the scene.

But late Friday, police changed that story, saying that while Bradford was involved in "some aspect of the altercation" and was armed with a handgun, he likely did not fire the rounds that injured the two others.

"We regret that our initial media release was not totally accurate, but new evidence indicates that it was not," Rector said.["Not totally accurate"? They change the report from "The shooter was killed at the scene" to "The shooter is still at large and we mistakenly killed the wrong person instead" and they say they were "not totally accurate"? The second statement should have begun, "We regret that our initial media release was complete bullshit."]

The new information emerged after Jefferson County Sheriff's Office investigators and crime scene experts spoke to witnesses and examined evidence, police said.

"Investigators now believe that more than two individuals were involved in the initial altercation," Rector said.

"This information indicates that there is at least one gunman still at large."

Police provided no name or description of the gunman at large.

The officer involved in the shooting is on administrative leave pending an investigation, police said.