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Mall shooting suspect won’t fight extradition to Alabama

A suspect in a Thanksgiving night Alabama mall shooting — which authorities say led a police officer to kill someone who likely wasn’t the shooter &...
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A suspect in a Thanksgiving night Alabama mall shooting — which authorities say led a police officer to kill someone who likely wasn’t the shooter — waived his right Friday to fight extradition from neighboring Georgia.

“Yes, ma’am,” Erron Martez Dequan Brown told a judge in a court in Atlanta’s Fulton County on Friday morning, when asked whether he wanted to waive his extradition hearing.

Brown, 20, was arrested Thursday at a relative’s home in Fairburn, Georgia, a week after a shooting at Riverchase Galleria Mall in the Alabama city of Hoover, a suburb of Birmingham.

Brown faces one count of attempted murder in the shooting.

Authorities say they now believe Brown shot 18-year-old Brian Xavier Wilson at the mall before fleeing. Wilson and a 12-year-old girl who was hit by a stray bullet are recovering from their injuries.

Moments after the shooting, a Hoover police officer working security at the mall shot and killed a different man — Emantic Bradford Jr. And over the past week, Hoover police have changed their story about why Bradford was shot.

First, Hoover police said they believed a 21-year-old suspect — later identified as Bradford — shot Wilson during a fight. Then police said Bradford probably didn’t pull the trigger, but he did brandish a gun.

Then they said Bradford had a gun in his hand, but didn’t say that he was threatening anyone with it.

All this has led to growing accusations of racial profiling — Bradford was black — and demands for answers. But the case has been turned over to the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA), which said Wednesday that it will “not release information concerning pending criminal investigations.”

Bradford’s family and their attorney allege the police officer wrongfully shot him, and did so without warning. Bradford had a concealed-weapon permit, they say.

The Hoover officer who was working as security at the mall when he killed Bradford is on administrative leave, pending the outcome of the investigation.

Bradford’s funeral will be held on Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Boutwell Auditorium in Birmingham, according to his online obituary. He is scheduled to be buried in Valhalla Cemetery in Birmingham.

The attempted murder charge

Brown’s charge of attempted murder relates to Wilson’s shooting.

“Additional charges are expected as the investigation progresses,” ALEA said.

It’s not clear what relation, if any, the suspect has to Wilson or to Bradford.

 

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