The bullet that killed Wallace State graduate Charles Brown probably was not meant for him, according to his mother.

“From what I’m told they were shooting at the guys that were with him,” Hattie Brown Hale said. “I really don’t know what happened.”

Brown was only in town for the weekend, she said.

Early Sunday morning, according to police reports, Brown was shot in the head while driving his car, a 1984 beige Buick LeSabre.

“He was working in Hoover, with Selective Masonry Industry,” Hale said.

Hale said that Brown was looking forward to participating in graduation exercises at Wallace Community College Selma in May.

He completed a degree in masonry last December.

Hale said she didn’t know why anybody would want to hurt her son.

“It was a great loss because everybody loved him,” she said.

She said she thought the intended victim of the shooting was sitting in the back seat, but she didn’t know who was with Brown at the time of the shooting.

“By the looks of the car, they were trying to kill everyone in the car,” she said. “They shot all the windows out.”

Shortly after the shooting, police arrested two 17-year-old Selma High School Students, Issac Oliver and Jesse Lee Brown.

Police apparently believe Oliver was the

shooter.

Police reported that the suspects were driving recklessly in the area of the shooting, just off the Highway 80 Bypass near the Jefferson Davis Avenue exit.

Selma Police Officer Edward Merrell stopped the suspects after he heard shots in the area and saw the two run a stop sign.

Almost immediately after the stop, Merrell heard dispatchers report a shooting victim in the area and detained the two, according to SPD reports.

“He was doing his job and was in the right place at the right time,” Public Relations Officer Lt. David Evans said.

Police said they found a pistol in the car.

Both suspects were charged with capital murder and held without bond. Judge Bob Armstrong later refused to award the two a bond in a hearing yesterday.

They are being held in the Dallas County Jail and both are charged as adults.

Oliver was identified by police as a shooting victim in an earlier case on Alabama Avenue on March 5.

He was shot in the left leg after getting into an argument inside a teen nightclub, SelTherapy.

Another youth, a Southside High School Student, Jonathan Leroy Blevins, was arrested and charged with assault I in the March 5 shooting.

While police haven’t issued a statement connecting the two cases, Blevins’ mother said that her son and the murder victim had mutual friends.

She said she believed people wanted to hurt her some because of the March 5 shooting..

“They want him. They riding around looking for my house,” she said. “I’m trying to keep him (Jonathan) at home,” Betty Blevins said.

With her son’s suspected killers in jail, Hale said she is focusing on dealing with his death.

“It’s an emotional strain,” Hale said.

“Every time I go into his room I see things that remind me of him.”

Brown has two brothers, ages 4 and 14.

She said the 4-year-old doesn’t understand. She said the boy thinks his big brother is away working.

“He don’t understand the severity,” she said. “I’ll explain it to him when he gets older.”