Gunfire outside Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama, left one person dead and eight others wounded on Saturday night, October 31, 2026, shortly after the annual Magic City Classic college football game had ended, police said.
Multiple shots rang out at around 7:50 p.m. local time in the 400 block of Graymont Avenue West, just outside the stadium, and officers responding to the scene found multiple gunshot victims, Birmingham police spokesperson De’Rell Freeman told reporters.
Nine people were hit by gunfire in total. One person was confirmed dead, one victim was in critical condition, and seven others were in stable condition, Freeman said.
Police said one person had been detained and taken to Birmingham police headquarters for questioning, and that multiple weapons had been found and secured at the scene.
Birmingham Police Chief Michael Pickett said most spectators and families had already left the stadium property when the shooting happened nearby, in an area where vendors had set up stalls along Graymont Avenue.
He said he was very grateful that more people were not injured.
Shots fired after the rivalry game
Police said the circumstances leading to the shooting remained unclear, and the identities of the victims and of the person detained had not been released.
No police officers or first responders were injured in the incident, according to police.
Officers asked the public to stay away from the Legion Field stadium property while the scene remained active, and police later asked anyone with video footage from the game or the surrounding area to share it with investigators.
What is confirmed so far is the death toll, the number of wounded, the location and timing of the shooting, the detention of one person for questioning, and the recovery of multiple weapons.
What is not confirmed is what started the shooting, whether the person detained will face charges, or whether anyone else was involved, since police have described the investigation as active and developing.
A celebration that turned violent
The shooting came after the 85th Magic City Classic, the annual rivalry game between Alabama A&M University and Alabama State University, the state’s two largest historically Black universities.
Alabama A&M beat Alabama State 31-28 at Legion Field on Saturday, the Bulldogs’ first win in the rivalry since fall 2021, ending the Hornets’ four-game winning streak in the series.
Alabama A&M improved to 7-2 overall and 4-1 in the Southwestern Athletic Conference, while Alabama State fell to 4-4 overall and 2-3 in conference play.
Thousands of fans, alumni and marching bands gather in Birmingham for the Classic each year, and celebrations and tailgating continued around the stadium after the game, according to local reports.
Police said the shooting happened in that post-game atmosphere, near vendors outside the stadium rather than inside the venue itself, after most of the crowd had dispersed.
The violence also came one week after a separate shooting near Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, where shots fired during a fight after a homecoming game wounded 11 people, including six juveniles, according to CNN.
That incident, like the Birmingham shooting, happened outside a stadium after a college football game, and it added to a Halloween weekend marked by several violent incidents across the United States, according to the Associated Press.
The Birmingham shooting also followed a separate shooting a day earlier at a shopping mall in Fairfield, California, where one person was killed and six others were injured at a Halloween costume store.
For now, Birmingham police say the investigation continues, the victims’ conditions are being monitored, and further details will depend on what investigators establish about how the shooting began and who was responsible.
