Mobile Police responded to a string of gun-related incidents over the weekend, including one involving a small child, as officers continued to grapple with a recent wave of shootings across the city.
The most serious call came Saturday around 8 a.m. in the 1200 block of Alba Street, where officers found that a 2-year-old boy had accidentally shot himself in the head with a handgun while he was unattended. The child was rushed to a nearby hospital with a life-threatening injury and remained in critical condition as of Monday.
Hours earlier, on Friday at about 6:30 p.m., a resident on Summerville Street grabbed a pistol after believing he heard someone in his backyard and accidentally shot himself in the foot. He was taken to a hospital for treatment.
Police also logged two separate assaults in which occupied vehicles were shot into, continuing a pattern investigators say has developed over the past two weeks. In the first, a man was shot in the arm and back while sitting inside a vehicle near Ann Street and Arlington Street around 10:54 a.m. Saturday. Officers who responded found the vehicle had been struck multiple times, and the victim was taken to a hospital for treatment.
In the second, a driver was shot twice around 8:45 p.m. Sunday while stopped at a fuel pump at the First Stop Chevron near Springhill Avenue and Ann Street. According to police, an unknown person approached the car after it stopped, opened the driver’s side door, slapped the driver and shot him twice. The driver managed to flee east on Springhill Avenue to escape the attacker.
The weekend’s violence followed a shooting the previous Thursday in which a driver was hospitalized after being shot while stopped at the main entrance intersection of Mobile Infirmary.
Not every incident was random. Early Saturday morning, around 5 a.m., police arrested a 58-year-old man in the parking lot of a Circle K on Theodore Dawes Road after discovering he had fired multiple shots into the backseat of his own car and through its rear window. Officers seized a firearm along with a bottle of Lortab, which investigators believe may have contributed to his behavior. Michael Toney, of Theodore, was charged with reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct and was released the same day on a $1,000 bond.
Officers also responded to an armed robbery early Sunday morning at Campus Quarters on South University Boulevard. A victim told police that an unknown man approached him around 3 a.m., produced a handgun, demanded his property and fled in a red vehicle. Investigators later located the vehicle’s driver, who turned out not to be the robbery suspect. That driver, 24-year-old Ross Rover, was arrested on drug possession charges and remained jailed.
Separately, a 23-year-old Mobile man was arrested Friday on a charge of possessing a stolen firearm. Police say Deangelo Knight allegedly tossed a gun out of his vehicle while being pulled over near Adams Street and Kennedy Street. The pistol was recovered and confirmed stolen, and Knight remained in custody as of Monday.
Two juveniles were arrested early Monday around 1 a.m. after officers responded to reports of shots fired near Dublin Street and Houston Street. Police say a silver vehicle matching the description from previous shooting reports in the area was spotted leaving onto Dauphin Island Parkway. When an officer attempted a traffic stop, the driver refused to stop, and three minors bailed out of the moving vehicle near Atoll Drive and Alee Street.
Police also responded to a domestic violence call on Archer Lane on Friday at 10:45 p.m., where a man reportedly armed himself with a shotgun during a fight with a victim and threatened to kill them. Charles Ferguson, 44, of Mobile, was arrested and charged with harassment, menacing and strangulation. He remained jailed as of Monday.
What the charges mean
Under Alabama law, reckless endangerment and menacing are misdemeanors, as are harassment and disorderly conduct. Domestic violence by strangulation or suffocation, by contrast, is a Class B felony. The charges described by police are accusations, and each person arrested is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
