BOY DIES, COP HURT IN HAIL OF GUNFIRE

A 6-year-old boy was killed and a Prichard police officer wounded Wednesday
night in a hail of gunfire that authorities called retaliation for the
shooting a day before of three young men by undercover officers. "This
appears to be retaliatory actions against our police department," said
Prichard Mayor Charles Harden, who responded to the scene at the Queens
Court apartments near the Mobile-Prichard city line.

The shooting came a day after threats of an ambush by people angry about
Tuesday's shooting. Police Chief Sammie Brown said he believed it was a
setup to lure officers into a dangerous situation.

Authorities said officers were drawn to the scene by a call of shots fired
in the apartment complex about 6 p.m.

Two marked police cars, one with two officers and the other with a lone
supervisor, pulled into the apartment complex. The officers got out of
their cars to investigate what turned out to be a false report. After they
returned to their cars someone opened fire on them, authorities said.

Brown said the officers did not return fire. Instead, they retreated to
Clark Avenue and St. Stephens Road, about two or three blocks away, and
called for backup.

The bullets apparently traveled across the street and to a house, where
they struck the boy, Kearis Bonham, said Brown at a 9 p.m. news conference.
The boy was rushed to the University of South Alabama Medical Center, where
he was pronounced dead at 6:21 p.m., authorities said.

Officer Lance LaPorte, who graduated from the police academy three months
ago, was shot but the bullet ricocheted off his bullet-resistant vest and
struck him in the neck, authorities said.

"He's going to be fine," said LaPorte's mother, Glenda LaPorte, who was at
the hospital with her son about an hour before he was released at 9 p.m.
"He has a bullet in his neck, but it's just under the skin and they're
removing it now."

Chief Brown said three suspects were in custody and being questioned by 9
p.m. Later Wednesday night Prichard police issued a "be-on-the-lookout"
order for a 23-year-old man.

"By no means are we intimidated by what took place tonight," Brown said.
About 200 law enforcement officers were in Prichard Wednesday night.

Glenda LaPorte said her son, who had wanted to be a police officer since he
was a child, was not involved in the Tuesday shooting that precipitated the
ambush. He was off duty then, she said.

LaPorte, 25, is married with one child and two stepchildren. He was riding
with officer Lorna King, 34, a mother of three who goes by her maiden name
of McCarroll at work.

King, was injured by flying glass but was not shot, said her husband, Andre
King.

Andre King said his wife -- a former officer who rejoined the force three
months ago -- called him from the scene and told him that her partner had
been shot. She said they had been on a call and were leaving when someone
started running after the cars, firing at them.

Lorna King told her husband that LaPorte pushed her down on the floorboard
and took off, Andre King said.

She said the car she was in was the last car to pull out, King said and
quoted his wife as saying "They started shooting; it was like some type of
ambush."

The car that LaPorte drove was at police headquarters late Wednesday. It
was riddled with bullet holes -- in the windshield, the roof and the trunk.
The back window was blown out, as was a window in the passenger side door.

The supervisor, a police lieutenant, was shot at but not hit, authorities
said. His car also had windows shot out. The lieutenant's name was
unavailable Wednesday night.

Willie Bonham, the dead boy's grandfather, said the child's mother attends
the University of Alabama Birmingham and was headed home late Wednesday.

Bonham said he was inside his house on Leggett Avenue and Kearis was on the
porch when at least two dozen shots rang out.

When the gunfire stopped, Bonham said, he ran outside and saw his grandson
had been shot in the head.

"At first we thought he was just ducking, because we always duck when
there's shooting," he said.

Bonham has lived in the same house for 33 years. He said the neighborhood
turned violent after the Queens Court Apartments were built.

"And now my little 6-year-old grandson's gone," he said, becoming
overwhelmed. "Didn't even know what life was about yet, and he's gone."

The shooting followed a day of protest and threats against police.

On Tuesday, two undercover narcotics officers, whom police still have not
identified publicly, opened fire on a car full of young men in the Alabama
Village neighborhood.

There were at least 19 shell casings at the scene of the Tuesday shooting .

Three men in the car were shot. A fourth escaped. Clifford Williams, 19,
who was shot in the head, remained in critical condition at the medical
center Wednesday night.

Two others who were shot -- including one young man who lives across the
street from Queens Court -- received minor injuries. The fourth man fled
the scene. Police said they found out who he was Wednesday but did not
release his name.

Several people at the scene Tuesday afternoon said the police opened fire
on the group of men without reason. They said the men in the car were
unarmed and were just stopping by a friend's house to play video games.

That shooting prompted cries of protest by some residents of the village, a
crime-plagued, poverty-stricken neighborhood about a mile away from the
scene of Wednesday night's incident.

Chief Brown said following Tuesday's shooting that someone from Queens
Court, which is also an area with a lot of drug and crime problems, made
threats to the police department. He said Wednesday night that he wants
officials to shut down the entire apartment complex.

He said that at least some of the three people in custody, whom he did not
identify, had made threats against officers at the scene of Tuesday's shooting.

About 150 to 200 people converged on the scene of Wednesday night's
shooting. Some people in the crowd were overheard mumbling complaints
against police.

Officers from the Prichard and Mobile police departments were there in
large numbers. They were backed up by Mobile County sheriff's deputies and
Alabama State Troopers, some from as far away as Conecuh County.

Tension was high among the officers. Many wore riot gear and carried shotguns.

About 45 minutes after the initial incident, a caravan of Mobile police
cars headed west on Clark Avenue toward Queens Court. The officers drove
with their doors open, and with shotguns on their laps, the barrel pointing up.

A while later, the officers could be seen surrounding the apartment
complex. They pointed shotguns and flashlights at people who approached,
including Mobile Register reporters and a photographer.

Police said they had cordoned off an area surrounding the apartment complex
and were going door to door in a search for the shooter. They used the
ladders from city fire trucks to search on roofs, and searched apartments
in the area.

While Prichard's officers were investigated the shooting, sheriff's
deputies were set to help patrol the city throughout the night.