Mobile police announced the arrests of two men in connection with a shooting earlier in the month that left three children wounded on Baltimore Street. The arrests came on a Wednesday, more than a week after the June 3 incident that struck a 7-year-old girl and two 13-year-old boys.
Police identified the men as 31-year-old Derrick Cooks and 18-year-old Darrell Tillman. “Officers of the Mobile Police Department are arresting Derrick Cooks for reckless endangerment times three and Darrell Tillman for reckless endangerment,” department spokesman Terrence Perkins said Wednesday night.
Charges shift during the investigation
Perkins said Cooks had initially been expected to face three counts of second-degree assault but was instead charged with three counts of reckless endangerment. Asked about the change, Perkins said the decision “was part of the investigation,” declining to elaborate further on the reasoning.
The distinction reflected how prosecutors and investigators weigh intent and circumstance in shootings that injure bystanders. Reckless endangerment addresses conduct that creates a substantial risk of serious injury, and in this case the victims were struck not by conventional gunfire but by projectiles from what police described as a “light load round.”
What happened on June 3
On June 3, officers were called to 1010 Baltimore Street for a report of a shooting. There they found that a 7-year-old girl and two boys, both 13, had been struck by projectiles. All three children were treated for their injuries and released, and police said the wounds were not life-threatening.
Investigators concluded that the shooting grew out of a fight that had broken out, and that the injured children were innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire. That the youngest victim was just 7 years old lent the case particular urgency in the neighborhood and among police.
Surrender and arrest
Perkins said Cooks turned himself in to police on Wednesday. Tillman, he said, was apprehended afterward. “Tillman was apprehended later after Cooks surrendered himself,” Perkins explained, adding that Cooks “played a part in getting him to come in.”
The resolution of the case, at least in terms of arrests, brought a measure of closure to an incident that had alarmed residents. Shootings that injure children draw intense attention, and the fact that the victims were treated and released spared the community a far graver outcome.
Police did not detail what led to the underlying altercation or describe the relationship, if any, between the two men and the families of the wounded children. The reckless endangerment charges signaled that authorities viewed the injuries as the product of dangerous conduct during a dispute rather than a deliberate attack on the young victims.
As the case moved toward the courts, the department’s account underscored a recurring concern in urban neighborhoods: that fights escalating to gunfire, even with lower-powered rounds, can put uninvolved residents, including children playing or passing nearby, directly in harm’s way. For the three young victims on Baltimore Street, the episode ended with recovery rather than tragedy, and with two men in custody.