Two people were killed and 12 others wounded in Montgomery Saturday night as two rival groups started indiscriminately spraying bullets at each other in the middle of a crowd in the state capital’s downtown.

Montgomery Police Department Chief James Graboys said at a Sunday afternoon press conference that the shootout “started as a result of an individual who we believe was targeted,” prompting “multiple people in the crowd” to draw their own weapons and start firing.

Seven of the victims are teenagers, and five of those shot are facing life-threatening injuries, authorities said. At least two victims in the shooting were armed. Graboys said “multiple” calibers of ammo were used, and that “multiple weapons” were recovered at the scene.

The victims killed in the shooting were identified as Jeremiah Morris, 17, and 43-year-old Shalanda Williams.

The massacre happened in the city’s busy tourist district downtown just after the football game between Tuskegee University and Morehouse College, two historically black universities in the state. Reed told reporters Sunday that the shooting had no connection to the football game.

The fracas escalated into a running gun battle that saw the perps — whose weapons had “very high-capacity magazines” — firing wildly into a crowd, hitting bystanders. 

Graboys said the department had been questioning “multiple” victims, and the “very complex” investigation is underway including a mass assortment of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and ATF.

“This was very much avoidable. The individuals responsible for this carried the weapons into the crowd. They could have walked away from what was happening but they did not,” Graboys said.

“We will pursue every avenue available to us.”

Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed, speaking forcefully at the press conference, said he and the council president contributed cash to bring the reward for tracking down those respoinsible to $50,000,

“Dangerous criminals and people who are this reckless with life don’t deserve to be free and don’t deserve to walk our streets,” he said, even hinting the city would examine revising its bail statutes.

“If there’s something we need to change in the bail and bonds laws, we’ll change the bail and bonds laws. We have to tighten things up, if we have to take a different position, then so be it.”

“This was two parties involved that were basically shooting at each other in the middle of a crowd,” he said, as reported by AL.com, adding that the shooters “did not care about the people around them when they did it.”

So far, there have been no arrests made. Twelve of the 14 victims remain in the hospital.

Police were patrolling “within 50 feet of both sides” of the scene when shooting broke out, Reed told reporters.

“We’re praying for the victims of this atrocity. We’re praying for their families, their friends. We’re praying for our city. Thousands of people have been in the city this weekend, and it only took one or two to change the entire outcome.”

Police are calling on anyone who knows anything about the shooting to speak to authorities.

“We are urging anyone with information related to this incident to come forward. Even the smallest detail could be critical to helping investigators identify those responsible,” Lt. McGriff said.

Montgomery is in the top 10 percent of high-crime US cities, according to data from the organization CrimeGrade.com.

In her February State of the State address, Ala. Gov. Kay Ivey said she would expand on a crime-fighting force in Montgomery called the Metro Area Crime Suppression Unit, featuring law enforcement officers from the MPD, the Montgomery Sheriff’s Office, the ATF and the Alabama Attorney General’s Office.

In August, US. Sen. Tommy Tuberville said he would support the deployment of the National Guard to both Montgomery and Birmingham to combat crime in those cities.

However, Mayor Reed has denied that his city needs the National Guard, and pointed out that violent crimes and non-violent crimes, as well as non-fatal shootings, had all decreased during the first half of 2025.

“Montgomery is not a battlefield. It is a city of families, faith and future. The people of this community deserve solutions rooted in partnership, not political soundbites, “he said at a press conference in June, as reported by the Alabama Reflector.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall offered sympathy to victims and their families in a statement on Facebook, while referencing the city’s out-of-control crime figures.

“These events underscore, once again, that our capital city is in crisis,” he said, hitting out at city leadership for their “stubborn refusal to acknowledge that they have a serious problem.”