By james art Authorities have released the name of a 38-year-old man killed in a shooting that also wounded another man in southwest Birmingham.
The Jefferson County Coroner’s Office identified the victim as Melvin Anthony Burks. He lived in Birmingham.
The shooting happened just after 6 p.m. Wednesday in the 1700 block of Pearson Avenue SW
Police received a call about a person shot and arrived to find a man suffering from a non-life-threatening wound, Officer Truman Fitzgerald said.
Officers then found Burks lying on the sidewalk with critical gunshot wounds.
Bystanders rendered aid to Burks until officers performed life-saving measures, Fitzgerald said.
Birmingham Fire and Rescue took both victims to UAB Hospital, where Burks was pronounced dead at 6:27 p.m.
Fitzgerald said one person was taken into custody for questioning and it appeared that everyone involved in the shooting knew each other.
“We believe this all stemmed from an argument between the deceased victim and a third adult male,” he said. “He was not shot in this case. … We believe all parties involved knew each other, so this is an incident where a suspect and victim or victims knew each other.”
Burks is the 134th homicide victim in Birmingham this year. Of these, 10 were determined to be valid, and another two occurred in previous years, but the victims died in 2024.
In all of Jefferson County, there were 169 murders, including the 134 in Birmingham.
Anyone with information is asked to call Homicide investigators at 205-254-1764 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777.