Mobile police spent the last week of June responding to a cluster of shootings across the city — several of them ending with arrests in which investigators concluded the wounded person actually started the fight. One victim grazed by a bullet drove himself to a fast-food restaurant to call for help. Another, shot in a dispute near Bayou Street, was left with life-threatening injuries and a case that remains open.
Here is what the Mobile Police Department reported about each case.
A graze wound, a Whataburger, and an arrest
The week’s first case unfolded Sunday, June 28, at approximately 5:20 p.m., when officers were dispatched to the 8100 block of Huber Road in west Mobile on a report of a shooting. By the time they arrived, the victim was gone. He had left the scene in his own vehicle and driven to the Whataburger on Schillinger Road, where he asked for medical help.
The man had been grazed by a bullet — painful, but not life-threatening — and was eventually carried the rest of the way to a local hospital by ambulance as a precaution. As investigators pieced together what happened, they determined the shooting actually occurred at the Huber Road home, during a physical altercation between the victim and a man he knew. Officers concluded the victim had initiated the altercation.
Austin Harbison, 29, was arrested in connection with the shooting and booked into Metro Jail.
Shot while shooting at a car
Two days earlier, on Friday, June 26, at approximately 5:19 p.m., officers responded to the 3000 block of Heather Street, where they found a male victim with a non-life-threatening injury. He initially refused ambulance transport to the hospital.
The story investigators pieced together was an unusual one. The victim and a man he knew had been in a verbal argument that turned physical, and police determined the victim started it — then retrieved a firearm and fired at a vehicle, accidentally shooting himself in the process.
Christopher Moffett, 24, was arrested and transported to Metro Jail on charges connected to the shooting into an occupied vehicle.
A domestic arrest on Caroline Avenue
On Saturday, June 27, at approximately 11:11 a.m., officers responded to the 1000 block of Caroline Avenue after a domestic incident was reported. According to police, a male subject had gotten into a verbal altercation with a woman he knew, and the confrontation turned physical when he tried to stop her from leaving the house. Investigators determined he assaulted her before officers arrived.
Jared Davis, 37, was arrested and booked into Metro Jail on domestic violence strangulation, domestic violence third-degree assault and resisting arrest charges.
Shots fired into unoccupied vehicle on Dauphin Street
Early Sunday, at approximately 12:38 a.m., officers were called to 3105 Dauphin Street, near the South of Dauphin apartment community, on a report of shots fired. When they arrived, they found an unoccupied vehicle had been struck by gunfire. No one was hurt.
The case remains an active investigation, and police have not announced any arrests.
A parking lot shooting at a Family Dollar
Later that Sunday, at approximately 6:30 p.m., officers responded to 653 Stanton Road — the shopping center that includes the Family Dollar there — after a domestic incident escalated into a shooting. A vehicle was struck by gunfire, but again no injuries were reported.
Police said a male subject left the area before officers arrived, and the investigation remains active.
The week’s most serious case
The most dangerous shooting of the week came Sunday night. At approximately 9:20 p.m., officers responded to the intersection of Government Street and Washington Avenue, just east of downtown, where they found a male victim suffering from a life-threatening injury.
The man had been shot near Bayou Street and Church Street, police said, and had tried to leave the area before being discovered near his motorcycle on Government Street. He was rushed to a local hospital for treatment.
The investigation remains active, and police said no further information would be released at this time. No arrest had been announced in the case as of the department’s latest update.
A pattern in the week’s cases
There is a pattern worth noticing in three of the week’s arrests. In the Huber Road case, the Heather Street case and the Caroline Avenue case, investigators concluded that the person who was shot — or, in the Caroline Avenue case, the alleged victim — had initiated the confrontation. That matters legally: under Alabama law, a person who starts a fight generally cannot claim self-defense if things escalate, and prosecutors weigh who initiated an altercation heavily when deciding charges.
It also underscores something police departments see constantly: a large share of gunfire in the city arises not from stranger violence but from arguments between people who know each other — neighbors, acquaintances, family members — that turn physical. Domestic violence accounted for one of the week’s four arrests, and two of the three shootings in which someone was wounded grew out of fights between people who knew each other.
The open cases
Three of the week’s incidents — the Dauphin Street shooting into an unoccupied vehicle, the Stanton Road parking lot shooting, and the serious Sunday-night shooting near Bayou and Church — remain under investigation with no one in custody. In each, police are asking anyone with information to come forward.
Tips in Mobile can be submitted to MPD at 251-208-7211, or anonymously through Crime Stoppers of the Gulf Coast at 251-208-7000, where information leading to an arrest may be eligible for a cash reward.
The department, like police agencies across the country, stresses that unsolved shootings create their own dangers — both because suspects remain free and because witnesses who see no consequences hesitate to come forward in the next case. The week’s record — four arrests, three open cases, and no fatalities — is, by the standards of a busy summer week, a mixed one: swift work on several cases, and three that detectives are still working to close.