A man killed in an exchange of gunfire outside a Birmingham nightclub has been identified.

The Jefferson County Coroner’s Office identified the victim as Ryan Colby Johnson. He was 25 and lived in Birmingham.

The deadly shooting happened in early Sunday.

Authorities said a Birmingham police officer off-duty security at working off-duty at a nightclub in the 100 block of Third Avenue heard shots fired just after 1 a.m. and went to investigate. That location is outside the Empire nightclub.

The officer found Johnson outside of a vehicle. He had been shot and was unresponsive, said Officer Truman Fitzgerald.

Johnson was taken to UAB Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 1:39 a.m.

Officer Truman Fitzgerald said the preliminary investigation shows that victim and an unidentified suspect got into an argument. Shots were then exchanged in the middle of the road.

No arrests have been announced.

In January, a similar situation happened.

An officer working at the club heard shots fired and found a man and a woman both had been shot about a block away. The man died and the woman survived.

Last year, an argument at a food truck outside Empire left two men dead.

Johnson is Birmingham’s 37th homicide in 2023. Of those, one was an officer-involved shooting by an outside agency and three others have been ruled justifiable and therefore aren’t deemed criminal.

In all of Jefferson County, there have been 50 homicides including the 37 in Birmingham.

Anyone with information is asked to call homicide detectives at 205-254-1764 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777.