Victor Colin, a 19-year-old Black male from Birmingham, Alabama, was killed in a predawn burst of gunfire on May 28, 2019, in the city’s Ensley area. The morning was already turning bright when police were drawn toward the 2500 block of Bush Boulevard by a ShotSpotter alert—an automated system that flags the sound of gunshots—sending officers to the scene around 6:29 a.m. Along the roadway they found Victor lying unresponsive, the violence of the moment already gone, leaving only the stillness that follows when help arrives too late.
Investigators described a frightening sequence leading up to the killing: they believed Victor had been chased from the 2500 block of Pike Road before he was shot and left on Bush Boulevard. At the scene, Birmingham Fire and Rescue and the Jefferson County Coroner responded, and Victor was pronounced dead. Early reporting also indicated authorities suspected someone may have been with him in the moments before the shooting—another person who disappeared from the scene as the first sirens approached—prompting a search of the surrounding area, including K-9 units working near nearby businesses and wooded ground.
As the initial details surfaced, the questions outnumbered the answers. Police reported no one in custody in connection with Victor’s death at the time, and no suspect names or descriptions were publicly confirmed in those early updates. The case was treated as an active homicide investigation, with authorities urging anyone who knew what happened—any glimpse of the chase, any sound or shadow in the seconds after the shots—to come forward, because the story of Victor’s last moments depended on witnesses who might not yet realize what they saw mattered.
