Four people were killed and 17 others were injured when multiple shooters opened fire Saturday evening in a bustling entertainment district in Birmingham, Alabama, in what police now believe was a targeted “hit.”

Just after 11 p.m., multiple people drove up to the Five Points South area, got out of their vehicle and began shooting, then got back in and drove away, Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond said Sunday.

Police believe the shooters were carrying out a hit on one person and the other victims were caught in the crossfire.

“Someone was willing to pay money to have that person killed,” Thurmond said.

Detectives are still “working to determine who was the intended target(s) of the shooting,” the police department said in a Sunday news release.

With no suspects in custody, the Birmingham Police Department is partnering with the FBI and other agencies to investigate, urging anyone with information to come forward.

The shooters are “believed” to have used machine gun conversion devices, according to the Sunday news release. The devices can be used to override the trigger mechanism on a gun, so it functions as a machine gun.

The US Attorney’s office in Birmingham announced an initiative cracking down on the devices in July.

Conversion devices “can convert semi-automatic pistols and rifles into fully automatic weapons in less than 60 seconds,” according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The federal government considers the small devices themselves to be illegal machine guns. Even without an accompanying firearm, they are illegal to own.

Randall Woodfin, the mayor of Birmingham, said gun violence is at an “epidemic level” in the city.

“I want to work with the state to solve this problem,” he said.

When officers arrived at the scene Saturday night, they found two men and a woman unresponsive with gunshot wounds, and all three were later pronounced dead on the scene, Birmingham Police Officer Truman Fitzgerald said. More than 100 shell casings were recovered from the scene, according to the police chief.

A fourth victim, an adult male, was pronounced dead at the University of Alabama Hospital, according to hospital staff. Police previously said 18 victims were injured.

Police have identified three of the four people killed as Anitra Holloman, 21; Tahj Booker, 27; and Carlos McCain, 27. Authorities are still working to identify the remaining male victim, according to the Sunday news release.

The White House is coordinating with state and local officials in the aftermath of the shooting, according to Stef Feldman, director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

“President Biden and Vice President Harris join Americans across the nation in praying for the families affected by this senseless violence,” she said in a news release. “Americans should not have to live like this. And we can’t let it become normal.”

The city is committed to finding the shooters involved, Woodfin told CNN Sunday evening.

“Our focus and our priority is literally the shooter or shooters who committed this heinous crime – to make sure we can take them off the street,” he said.

‘Devastating’ violence

The incident is among 404 mass shootings in the United States so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The archive, like CNN, defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.

While crime rates are trending down nationally, Birmingham saw a spike earlier this year.

FBI data show murder rates dropped by more than 26% nationally in the first three months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023. As of March 4, Birmingham police reported 17 murders this year, compared to 12 during the same period last year, a 41.7% increase.

A shooting at a nightclub in the city in July left four people dead and 10 others injured, according to CNN affiliate WVRC, and four men were shot and killed outside a public library in February, CNN affiliate WVTM reported.

The mayor called for “stricter and tougher” laws “to give Birmingham police the tools to take shooters off the streets prior to an incident like this” in his Sunday interview with CNN.

He called particular attention to conversion devices. “They are illegal federally, but not at the state level,” he said. “We need to investigate those who are making these conversion devices, who are selling these conversion devices.”

Enforcing stricter gun regulation “does require a political shift at every level,” Woodfin said. “It does require us to roll up our sleeves and make common sense laws that actually save lives.”

Five Points South is a busy area known for its restaurants, nightclubs, pubs and live music venues near the University of Alabama at Birmingham campus and downtown.

Like a ‘horror movie’

Gabriel Eslami, 24, was standing in line outside Hush, a hookah bar, about 11 p.m. after attending a high school reunion cookout earlier in the day.

“All of a sudden it was just gunshots, gunshots, gunshots,” Eslami told CNN. “I started running for my life.” Less than three seconds later, Eslami said he wasn’t able to feel his leg and fell to the ground.

What he saw next, Eslami described as a “horror movie.”

“There are bodies laid out all over the sidewalk, gun smoke in the air. There are shoes. People ran out of their shoes trying to escape. I saw people hiding behind cars, laying under cars,” he said.

Eslami, fearful of bleeding out, called 911 but then heard friend and former classmate JaMarlin Sewell calling out his name. Sewell rushed him to hospital, where Eslami said the chaos continued, with patients “screaming and hollering” from their injuries.

Doctors told him the bullet that had hit him from behind had been millimeters from his artery.

“I don’t even know the words to describe how I feel knowing that I was blessed enough to make it out with minimal injuries and some people didn’t go home that night,” Eslami said.

“This has to stop,” he told CNN. “We are young adults, and we can’t even live a full life anymore.”

Dajon Singleton was out for the night with plans to bar hop in the area when he came across the chaotic scene.

He told CNN affiliate WBMA he heard “grieving-type screaming.”

“That’s when I instantly knew someone had lost a loved one,” he said.

He recalled watching about five or six victims being taken away on stretchers. “It was very devastating,” he said.

Singleton said he lives about five to 10 minutes away and often goes out in the crowded nightlife area on the weekends. Crime in the area tends to be more frequent around the holidays, he said.

The victims were all out in the open on the sidewalk or on the streets, Fitzgerald said.

More gunshot victims were identified in the area, and other victims arrived at local hospitals, Fitzgerald said. The University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital received 11 of the victims, including one of the people who died, according to hospital spokesperson Hannah Echols. The conditions of the victims have not been released.

At least four victims have life-threatening injuries, Fitzgerald said.

“Rest assured, we are going to do everything we possibly can to make sure that we uncover, identify and hunt down who was ever responsible for preying on our people,” he said.

Birmingham police have asked businesses in the area to provide any surveillance footage they might have.

Fitzgerald said mass shootings “have more to do with culture than they do criminality,” adding, “We’re seeing far too many arguments being settled by bullets.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Jillian Sykes, Aaron Eggleston, Sam Fossum and Zoe Sottile contributed to this report.