A man has been arrested in connection with a Thursday morning homicide near Harding Boulevard, according to the Mobile Police Department.
Fifty-year-old John Myers is accused of shooting and killing one man and seriously injuring another during an Aug. 13 incident between Harding Boulevard and Avenue C in Mobile. Officers responded to the scene at about 9 a.m.
The Investigation
The shooting claimed one life and left a second victim seriously wounded — the kind of dual-casualty scene that mobilizes homicide detectives, crime scene technicians and patrol supervisors in the first hour after the shots are fired.
As of the end of last week, the surviving victim remained hospitalized, and their condition had not been provided as of Monday morning. The identity of the person killed has not been released by police, pending notification of family — a step that becomes part of the public record when the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office or the district attorney’s office discloses the victim’s name in court filings.
Myers was found and arrested Friday afternoon, two days after the shooting. According to the Mobile County Metro Jail logs, he has been charged with murder and attempted murder — the pairing of charges that follows when a single attack kills one person and injures another.
The dual charges reflect how prosecutors treat multi-victim shootings. Murder carries the state’s most serious potential penalties, and attempted murder — charged when a person acts with intent to kill but the victim survives — allows prosecutors to seek accountability for both casualties of the same attack. Together, the two counts expose a defendant to decades in prison if convicted.
The Neighborhood
The area between Harding Boulevard and Avenue C, in the city’s Brookley-adjacent neighborhoods, has seen periodic violence over the years, and the Aug. 13 shooting was the kind of daytime incident — occurring around 9 a.m. — that rattles a residential block precisely because it happened in broad daylight.
Daytime shootings present both advantages and challenges for investigators. There are more potential witnesses awake and moving when a shooting happens mid-morning, but there are also more competing sounds, more traffic and more reasons for witnesses to hesitate before coming forward. Detectives spent the two days between the shooting and the arrest canvassing the neighborhood, reviewing any available surveillance footage, and working to establish the sequence of events that led to gunfire.
A criminal complaint detailing the charges against Myers was not yet available in online court filings as of Monday morning, meaning many of the specifics — the motive, the relationship between the suspect and the victims, and the sequence of events — remained undisclosed.
What Happens Next
Myers is being held in the Mobile County Metro Jail on the murder and attempted murder charges. His case will proceed through Mobile County’s criminal courts: an initial appearance and bond determination, followed by presentation to a grand jury for indictment. Murder cases in Mobile County typically take months to reach trial, and the outcome will depend on the evidence homicide detectives assembled during the initial canvass and in the days since.
Prosecutors have not indicated whether additional suspects are being sought in connection with the shooting.
The condition of the surviving victim remains a central question in the case. The victim’s recovery will determine, in part, how the attempted murder charge proceeds — and whether the victim is able to testify about what happened between Harding Boulevard and Avenue C on the morning of Aug. 13.
Anyone with information about the shooting is encouraged to contact the Mobile Police Department at 251-208-7211, or to leave an anonymous tip with CrimeStoppers of Mobile and the Alabama Gulf Coast, which offers cash rewards for information leading to an arrest.