[0:01]Continuing coverage tonight. It's been 19 months since two Birmingham firefighters were shot at Fire Station 9 in Norwood. Interim Birmingham Police Chief Michael Pickett announced today the arrest of 22-year-old Damien McDaniel in that shooting. McDaniel's been charged with capital murder in the death of Jordan Melton and attempted murder in the shooting of Jamal Jones. McDaniel has already been charged in two mass shootings and now police say he's charged in additional homicides. The death of Mia Nixon in January of 2024 and the murder for higher death of a UPS worker Anthony Love Jr. on April 9th. Now, new tonight. We are learning more about the legal road ahead for Damian McDaniel. CBS 42 Scott Minshaw joins us now live. Uh you spoke with both defense and the prosecution in McDaniel's case today. Scott, what's next for this case?
[0:59]Well, Carly, the next thing will be the arraignments for those three new murder charges announced today. That brings the total up to 14 murders that McDaniel is accused of. His attorney tells me that he plans to plead not guilty to all of them. John Robbins is lead counsel for accused mass shooter Damien McDaniel. Everybody, everybody is entitled to a fair trial and a vigorous defense. McDaniel's accused of murdering 14 people and committing two mass shootings in Birmingham. Which is why District Attorney Danny Carr is pursuing the death penalty. Are you seeking the death penalty in this case against him? Yes, we are. Yes, we are. Yes. During Tuesday's City Council meeting, Birmingham City Council Hunter Williams commented on the new charges. To me, you are a terrorist, and I hope that wherever court this goes, that they seek the death penalty, but Robbins says there has been no evidence presented to support the charges against his client. But Carr says that evidence is coming. We technically haven't had a trial yet. So we'll see when the trial comes. We will do our own independent investigation, but we will review and see what the states believe they have, and we will build our defense that way. Carr says the timeline of when these cases could go to trial is still unclear. Most of these cases will probably be tried separate. Um, but at the end of the day, um, you know, a lot of that will go to the strategy of of what the rules of evidence will allow, uh, what the rules of criminal procedure will allow, as relates to um, which case get tried first, are they tried together, are they all relevant, are they not relevant? Um, you know, those are matters that we'll decide in court at some point later on. Well, the community, I mean, the people of Birmingham, the people of this state, the people of our country, okay, needs to take, take a step back and let the, let the judicial system handle this in court.
[3:12]Yeah, Carly, Sherry, like I said earlier, the next step here is for McDaniel to appear in court for the arraignments for those three new murder charges that were announced today. Reporting in Birmingham, Scott Mitchall, CBS 42 News. Scott, thank you. McDaniel has charges dating back to 2019. You can find a full timeline of the cases and further information right now on our website, that's CBS 42.com.
