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By Jay Reeves and Kate Brumback, The Associated Press
Authorities on Nov. 29 arrested a suspect in a Thanksgiving shooting that spread panic at Alabama’s largest shopping mall, but protesters said they would continue demonstrations over the police killing of another Black man who was initially believed to be the shooter.
Erron Martez Dequan Brown, 20, of Bessemer was captured in Georgia at a relative’s home south of Atlanta, authorities said. He was jailed awaiting a hearing to be sent back to Alabama.
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said Brown was charged in the shooting of Brian Xavier Wilson, 18, of Birmingham, who was wounded at the Riverchase Galleria in Hoover on Thanksgiving night.
Authorities didn’t announce charges in the shooting of another person who was wounded, 12-year-old girl, and a spokeswoman for the agency did not respond to an email seeking details.
Protesters said Brown’s arrest didn’t resolve what they referred to as the “murder” of Emantic “EJ” Bradford Jr., 21, by police, and they vowed continuing demonstrations over his shooting death.
“We’re asking members of the public to not spend another dime in Hoover until they take Black lives seriously,” Carlos Chaverst Jr., who has helped organize protests, said at a news conference.
In a statement issued by their lawyer, Bradford’s relatives said they were gratified by Brown’s arrest and said it further underscored Bradford’s “unjust” death.
Police have said a Hoover police officer who was working security at the mall during the start of Black Friday shopping heard shots and responded within seconds. The officer, who has yet to be publicly identified, saw Bradford with a gun and shot him, police said.
Authorities at first identified Bradford as the shooter who wounded two people. They later retracted that allegation and searched for the real gunman.
Bradford’s relatives have said he had a permit to carry a gun legally, and their attorney Ben Crump has quoted witnesses as saying Bradford was trying to help when he was gunned down.
“He was a good guy with a gun,” Crump said.
Court records show Brown previously was arrested in June 2017 in Huntsville on a charge of using a gun to rob a man, but the case was dismissed three months later after prosecutors filed notice that they didn’t want to pursue the case.
As Brown was being arrested near Atlanta, demonstrators and relatives of Bradford have pushed authorities to release video and other evidence about the shooting.
A minister who described himself as the Bradford family’s pastor, Mike McClure Jr., said releasing video of the shooting would help calm growing tensions that have included days of protests and racist social media posts.
“When there is no information it only leads to imagination,” said McClure.
A statement from the state agency about Brown’s arrest said it was “highly likely” that releasing evidence would hamper the continuing investigation, but it didn’t directly address the city’s request.
Hoover is a city of 85,000 people that gained much of its population as White residents left Birmingham after the end of legalized racial segregation in neighboring Birmingham. Chaverst, one of the protest leaders, said the city was “built on racism.”
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