A gunman opened fire at 16-year-old Alexis Dowdell’s Sweet 16 party in a small Alabama dance studio, killing her brother and several other guests.
Dowdell recounted Saturday’s terror in Dadeville to The Associated Press while surrounded by family on Monday. Her 18-year-old brother, Philstavious Phil Dowdell, and three others were killed in the shooting, along with 32 others, some of whom were critically injured.
Alabama Mall Shooting Details Released
Monday evening, state officials had not released a substantial amount of information regarding their investigation.
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency stated that only shell casings from handguns were discovered and that no evidence of a high-powered rifle was discovered. Investigators continued to ask the public for information, including videos.
The weekend in the United States was marked by a string of high-profile shootings. Saturday, two people were killed and four others were injured in Louisville, Kentucky; four men were shot, one fatally, in Los Angeles; and two women were injured at Lincoln University in southeastern Pennsylvania.
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Victims Identified By County Coroner
Saturday evening in Dadeville, about an hour’s drive northeast of Montgomery, began appropriately with everyone dancing and feeling the music, according to Alexis Dowdell.
Cooper, Keenan, is the party’s DJ. When partygoers learned that someone had a firearm, the festivities were briefly halted. He stated that those carrying weapons were asked to leave, but nobody did so.
Dowdell reported that she dove to the floor near the DJ as dozens of partygoers fled. She didn’t know where to run, in part because it appeared that shots were coming from multiple directions.
When the gunfire ceased, she sprinted for the front door. Someone however pushed her. It was her brother who was attempting to shield her.
Phil Dowdell, a star wide receiver who planned to play college football, was losing consciousness. His sister approached him and begged him to stay with her. She examined her injured friends, including one who she claimed had been shot in the head. By the time the paramedics arrived, Phil was without a pulse.
Tallapoosa County Coroner Mike Knox identified the victims as Phil Dowdell, a 2018 graduate of Dadeville High School, Shaunkivia Nicole KeKe Smith, a 2017 graduate of Dadeville High School who was an athlete turned team manager, Marsiah Emmanuel Siah Collins, a 2022 graduate of Opelika High School who aspired to be a singer and whose father told AL.com that Collins planned to start college this fallgraduate Corbin Dahmontrey Holston, 23, another former athlete at the school.
In the aftermath of the shootings, family, and friends recalled large and small details about the deceased.
Smith was so enthusiastic about graduating high school and beginning college that, when a former neighbor inquired about it, she provided the exact time she was scheduled to graduate.
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