Martinez Laudell Smith was 21 when he was killed in the early hours of April 9, 2023, after a party near Legion Field in Birmingham turned violent. Police say a fight began inside the Peyton Place event center, spilled into the street on the 200 block of 8th Avenue West, and then gunfire erupted. Officers found two wounded men outside; Smith was later discovered to have been driven by private vehicle to Princeton Baptist Medical Center, where he died from his wounds.

Authorities treated the incident as a confrontation among participants rather than a distant ambush. All three men shot were believed to have been involved in the physical altercation, and one surviving victim with non-life-threatening injuries was taken into custody at the hospital and identified by investigators as a suspect.

If anyone attended the event or has information about the confrontation that led to Smith’s death, please come forward.