The city of Birmingham has filed a lawsuit against a south Birmingham apartment complex where a 30-year-old man was shot to death in July.
Mountainside Apartments, located on Penthouse Drive the city’s Glen Iris neighborhood, has been the site of several incidents of murder, gun-related violence, assaults, drug-related activity and violence, according to the lawsuit filed by the Office of the City Attorney’s Drug Nuisance Abatement Team.
City Attorney Nicole King said in the suit filed Friday that city has notified the property owner multiple times of ongoing criminal activity at the property.
The lawsuit says the owner “has failed to either prevent, deter or disperse the violence occurring” at the property, and cites the property as a public nuisance and a drug-related nuisance.
The lawsuit asks the court to require the property owner to take multiple steps to improve security at the apartments. If the owner fails to take appropriate action, the city asks the court to fine the owner and require the property to be sold.
Efforts to locate the property owners for comment weren’t immediately successful.
In the court filing, the city details a fatal shooting that occurred on July 26, 2024.
South Precinct officers were dispatched shortly before 9:30 p.m. that Friday to a report of a person shot in the 100 block of Penthouse Drive. That location is Mountainside Apartments.
Police arrived to find Reco Dewayne Stevenson dead inside a vehicle.
A witness reported that a black SUV had driven up to the apartments and five to six people jumped out, opening fire on Stevenson’s vehicle.
Officers learned that the victim’s apartment, Unit 203, had been struck multiple times by gunfire in a large, glass balcony window.
A safety sweep of the apartment was conducted to check for potential victims, and a sergeant saw a gun in plain view on a table. He also saw an AR15-style rifle in plain view in a bedroom.
The sergeant, according to the lawsuit, spotted a cell phone in the hallway that appeared to have blood on it. He found no one else in the apartment.
A search warrant was obtained for the apartment. Officer seized fentanyl, methamphetamine, mushrooms, marijuana, drug paraphernalia, multiple firearms, and more than $19,000 in cash.
The suit states that in just over two years, BPD has responded to more than 200 calls for service involving “crimes against persons” at Mountainside.
Those calls include homicide, assault, drugs, burglary, larceny/theft, fights and over 25 calls for domestic violence.
King created the Drug Nuisance Abatement Team in 2020, which she said, through the courts, holds landowners accountable for keeping their properties clean and free of crime and blight.
The suit against Mountainside is the latest in a series of similar lawsuits against other properties throughout the city where crimes have taken place.
“The Office of the City Attorney’s Drug Nuisance Abatement Team is committed to disrupting illegal activity that takes root when property owners fail to keep their property free of blight and crime,” King said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
“DNAT has developed a track record of holding property owners accountable to generate a safer environment for residents, both on those properties and in surrounding neighborhoods.”