Mark Jhawntee Louis, a 53-year-old man from Birmingham, Alabama, was killed in a late-night shooting on July 20, 2026, along Tuscaloosa Avenue Southwest in west Birmingham. At approximately 10:42 p.m., Birmingham Police Department West Precinct officers were dispatched to 1017 Tuscaloosa Avenue SW after the city's ShotSpotter system detected approximately 16 rounds of gunfire. While officers were traveling to the location, the call was upgraded to indicate that someone had been shot. When police reached the scene, they found Louis lying on the ground, unresponsive and suffering from gunshot wounds. Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service personnel responded but were unable to save him, and he was pronounced dead at the scene at approximately 10:51 p.m.
Investigators initially had little public information explaining what led to the shooting. Residents in the area told police they had heard a series of gunshots and then saw Louis lying on the ground. A witness contacted 911 after discovering him. Authorities did not immediately announce a motive, describe an argument or confrontation preceding the gunfire, or explain whether Louis had been specifically targeted. The Jefferson County Coroner's Office subsequently identified him, and Birmingham police classified the death as a homicide. Police described the circumstances surrounding the gunshot wounds as unclear during the early stages of the investigation. The killing was reported as Birmingham's 26th murder investigation of 2026 at that point in the year.
Although the first reports said no one was in custody, the investigation soon resulted in the identification of Timothy James Bailey Jr. of Birmingham as a suspect. Birmingham police later announced that Bailey, 36, had been arrested in connection with Louis's death. Police said Bailey was taken into custody without incident by the department's VCAT unit. Authorities charged him with murder as well as an additional firearm-related offense described by police and local news reports as discharging a firearm into an occupied dwelling. The arrest represented a significant development from the initial investigation, when detectives had publicly reported having no suspect in custody.
Jefferson County Jail records show Bailey was booked on July 24, 2026, as a pretrial inmate following his arrest by Birmingham police. The jail record lists a murder charge connected to the July 20 offense and a second charge involving the discharge of a firearm into an occupied structure; the jail's computerized charge description specifically identifies that count as discharging a firearm into an occupied school bus or school building, which differs from the "occupied dwelling" wording reported in news coverage. Bailey was being held in the Jefferson County Jail with no bond listed on either charge. As a pretrial defendant, he had not been convicted of Louis's killing, and the publicly available sources reviewed did not report a trial, guilty plea, sentencing, or conviction as of August 11, 2026.
Louis's obituary records his date of birth as December 30, 1972, and confirms that he died on July 20, 2026, while residing in Birmingham. His family arranged visitation for July 31 at Eastside Funeral Home in Birmingham, followed by funeral services there on August 1. The available reporting does not establish a publicly disclosed motive for the shooting, describe the relationship between Louis and Bailey, or identify any additional suspects. The case therefore remained a pending homicide prosecution centered on Bailey, with the precise circumstances that led to the burst of gunfire on Tuscaloosa Avenue not yet explained in the public record.
