Police report that 28-year-old Joseph Smith IV of Eight Mile has been arrested and charged with murder in connection with the shooting death of a 23-year-old man in Mobile’s Happy Hill community earlier this month.
Mobile police said Thursday that 28-year-old Joseph J. Smith IV, of Eight Mile, got into a shootout with 23-year-old Jonathan Sanders on Friday in the 700 block of Highland Avenue.
Investigators said Smith fired first and that Sanders returned fire. Sanders died, and Smith was taken to the hospital with a non-life-threatening gunshot to the leg. The hospital released him Wednesday, and police brought him in for questioning. Smith has a bond hearing scheduled for Friday.
Prosecutors also have asked a judge to revoke his probation on a drug conviction from last year. The probation officer’s narrative lays out detailed allegations in the homicide. According to that report, Sanders was dating Smith’s ex-girlfriend. Those records state that the girlfriend called Sanders and said that Smith was harassing her and following her.
She arrived at the home on Highland Avenue. The report states that a witness reported that Sanders came outside with a .223-caliber rifle and told Smith to leave. After an argument, Smith pulled two guns from his waistband and began shooting, according to the document. The report states that the shooting took place while Sanders’ girlfriend’s young daughter was in the back seat of the car.
According to the probation report, Smith’s phone received several calls from contacts listed under a gang name, suggesting gang ties.on this same block a year ago. Police charged Chickasaw resident Brandon Bernard White with first-degree assault after that March 2025 shooting. White has a status hearing scheduled for Thursday in Mobile County Circuit Court. With the victim in that case now dead, Mobile County District Attorney Keith Blackwood acknowledges it could complicate the prosecution.
“When something like that happens, it creates an issue evidence,” he said. “There are certain cases we can continue to go forward on, depending on the facts. So we’re gonna have to sit down, look at all of the circumstances, what kind of admissible evidence we still have and see if we can move forward with the prosecution.
”Convicted Mobile kingpin’s sister-in-law sentenced for helping to hide gun, jewelry from agentsNo word of identities yet in Mobile stabbing that wounded three peopleConvicted ‘kingpin’ continued directing illegal Mobile enterprise even after trial, feds allege
Joseph Smith IV Happy Hills Homicide Mobile Murder
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