MOBILE, Alabama — Police are searching for four armed suspects after a man was shot during a carjacking near downtown Mobile over the weekend, according to the Mobile Police Department. Officers responded to a reported robbery on Bizzell Avenue, near Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, around 8:45 p.m. Sunday, and found a carjacking that unfolded in seconds but left a shooting victim and a stolen vehicle behind it.
Investigators say the victim told officers that four men armed with handguns confronted him, shot him in the shoulder and fled in his vehicle. Medical crews transported the man to a local hospital for treatment. His shoulder wound was reported as survivable, though police have not released further details about his condition beyond confirmation that he was treated after the attack.
The violent takeovers police describe in cases like this follow a common pattern: multiple suspects, handguns, a driver alone or in an easy target vehicle, an attack brief enough that it is over before anyone nearby can react. Four suspects acting together suggests coordination, and the speed of the crime is precisely what makes it difficult to interrupt and investigate.
Police spokesman Officer Terence Perkins said the suspects face potential charges of first-degree robbery and second-degree assault once identified and located, though descriptions of the men and the stolen vehicle have not been released publicly. Withholding descriptions in the early hours of an investigation is standard practice while detectives verify witness accounts and avoid compromising the identification process.
The Search For Four Suspects
The Bizzell Avenue corridor sits within a residential stretch of midtown Mobile that has periodically seen carjacking and robbery activity reported to police. The neighborhood near Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue is residential and walkable, which means an armed carjacking at 8:45 on a Sunday night happened in a place where residents were home, outside or nearby — potential witnesses detectives will want to hear from.
Investigators are continuing to review the case and are asking anyone with information about the shooting or the whereabouts of the stolen vehicle to contact the Mobile Police Department at 251-208-7211. Tips about a stolen vehicle often come from residents who spot it parked or moving in their own neighborhood days later, making public awareness one of the most productive investigative tools available.
Police have not said whether the vehicle has been recovered, and no arrests had been announced in the case as of this report. Investigators also have not said whether the four suspects are believed to be connected to other recent robberies in the area, though detectives routinely compare methods, timing and locations across open cases to identify patterns.
Why Carjackings Are Hard Cases
Mobile police have periodically flagged carjacking as one of the harder crime trends to combat, since it often unfolds quickly and can leave detectives with little more than witness accounts to start from. A carjacking produces few of the physical breadcrumbs a burglary leaves behind: the crime scene is a street, the weapon is carried away, and the stolen car can be fifty miles away before the victim finishes talking with officers.
Investigators say video canvassing and community tips are frequently what turns fleeting carjacking cases into arrests weeks or months later. Detectives work outward from the scene, collecting footage from home security cameras, businesses and traffic cameras along the likely escape route, then pairing what the video shows with tips from residents who recognize a vehicle or a face. Most carjacking arrests, nationally and locally, arrive through that slow accumulation rather than a dramatic same-night capture.
The victim’s account is the other foundation of the case. Four suspects, handguns, the direction they fled and anything they said or wore all become the comparison points against footage and tips. Even partial details — a car model glimpsed under a streetlight, a phrase one suspect used — can connect a case to others.
How The Department Deploys
Robberies and carjackings involving handguns tend to draw close scrutiny from Mobile police commanders, who periodically shift patrol resources into corridors that see repeated reports. Those adjustments are data-driven: when a neighborhood’s robbery reports cluster in time and geography, commanders can direct extra patrols into the corridor during the hours when the crimes have been happening.
Residents along Bizzell Avenue and nearby streets have been encouraged to report suspicious activity promptly. Prompt reports give officers a chance to respond while a crime is in progress or just completed, and they build the timeline detectives need even when nothing came of the suspicious moment itself. A car circling the block, strangers idling in a parking lot or someone testing car doors at night are all worth a call to the non-emergency line at the time — and a call to 911 if a crime is happening.
The Charges The Suspects Face
The potential charges Perkins outlined reflect how Alabama law treats armed vehicle theft. First-degree robbery applies when a defendant is armed with a deadly weapon or causes serious physical injury during a robbery, and it carries the state’s most serious robbery penalties. Second-degree assault covers the shooting that wounded the victim, and prosecutors can bring both counts arising from the same incident — one for taking the vehicle by force, one for the gunshot.
With four suspects, each participant faces exposure based on his own role and Alabama’s accountability rules, which hold participants liable for crimes committed in concert even when one person pulled the trigger. Identifying all four, and establishing what each did, will shape the prosecution detectives build once arrests are made.
What Residents Can Do
Anyone with information can call the Mobile Police Department at 251-208-7211, and callers who want to remain anonymous can pass tips through the department’s anonymous channels. Investigators particularly want to hear from anyone who was in the Bizzell Avenue area near Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue around 8:45 p.m. Sunday, whether or not they think they saw anything relevant — a detail that seems minor to a witness can be the one that advances a case.
Residents who spot a vehicle matching the stolen car should not approach it. A stolen vehicle reported in a violent carjacking should be handled by a phone call with a location and description, letting officers respond with the information and positioning to take the report further safely.
The investigation remains open, and the department has said updates will come as detectives develop identifies and locate the vehicle. Until then, the case stands where so many carjackings do: a wounded victim recovering, four suspects unidentified, a neighborhood asked to remember what it saw on a Sunday night, and detectives working the videos, tips and timelines that eventually turn moments of violence into arrests.
The Sunday night timing put the crime at the edge of the weekend, when midtown streets are quieter but still populated. Sunday evenings around the Bizzell Avenue area typically bring people home from church services, family gatherings and cookouts, meaning the corridor had residents on porches and in yards who may have heard or seen the moments before or after the attack.
The victim’s ability to speak with investigators the same night gives detectives their fullest account while memories are fresh. Statements taken within hours of a violent crime capture details — voices, clothing, direction of flight, words exchanged — that fade or blur with every passing day, which is why detectives prioritize a hospital interview as soon as the victim’s condition allows.
Home security cameras have changed the investigative math in neighborhoods like this one. Doorbell cameras and exterior systems now record continuously across residential blocks that had no coverage a decade ago, and the first canvass in any carjacking case asks every house within sight of the scene whether a system captured the street. Detectives in Mobile routinely credit that footage for breaking cases that once would have relied on witnesses alone.
The stolen vehicle itself carries investigative value beyond its recovery. Vehicles taken in armed carjackings are sometimes stripped, resold or abandoned after short use, but each movement generates potential sightings, license-plate reader hits and camera captures that map the suspects’ movements after the crime. Every hour the car stays missing is an hour of evidence accumulating somewhere.
Community cooperation will shape how the case resolves. Police departments consistently report that the highest-volume source of violent-crime tips is the neighborhood where the crime happened, and residents who saw the four men before the attack — loitering, walking the block, sitting in a parked car — may hold the fragment that identifies them. Detectives encourage those witnesses to come forward even when they doubt what they saw matters.
The department’s practice of shifting patrols toward corridors with repeated robbery reports means the Bizzell Avenue area is likely to see a heavier police presence in the coming weeks. Those deployments serve two purposes at once: deterrence in the corridor where the crime happened, and a faster response if the same crew strikes again while detectives work the case.
For now, the man who was shot is recovering, and the four suspects remain at large with their vehicle. Anyone with information about the Sunday night carjacking, the suspects or the stolen car is asked to call Mobile police at 251-208-7211. The investigation remains open.