Police in Colorado are searching for a suspect accused of shooting three people dead and critically injuring a fourth person in a conflict over property lines on Monday afternoon.
The suspect, 45-year-old Hanme K. Clark, is believed to be driving a white Ram 1500 pickup truck with a camper shell, according to a Facebook post from the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office. He is described as armed and dangerous.
“If you see the vehicle or the suspect, DO NOT APPROACH, call 9-1-1 immediately,” authorities advise.
The shooting occurred around 1 p.m. local time when a person opened fire on a group of five people, CNN reported, citing Custer County Sheriff Lloyd Smith.
Two men and a woman were killed at the scene, while another woman suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the chest. The injured woman was taken to a trauma centre and is expected to survive, Smith said. The fifth person was able to escape.
The shooting took place on the property line in a rural, wooded area and began with “a suspected property dispute,” police said.
“The suspect and at least one of the victims have been in previous civil disputes about property lines,” Smith said, without commenting further.
A SWAT team arrived shortly after the shooting and nearby residents were told to shelter in place as authorities hunted for the suspect. The order was lifted Monday night while the shooter remained at large.
The shooting occurred along Rocky Ridge Road, about 80 kilometres southwest of Colorado Springs.
According to local broadcaster KRDO, police were locked in a standoff with Clark for hours Monday evening, but he somehow managed to slip away despite the heavy law enforcement presence in the area.
In a Facebook post early Tuesday, the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office said it was searching for Clark in the southeastern part of the county, about 64 kilometres northwest of where the shooting occurred. A shelter-in-place order is currently in effect for the area south of U.S. Route 50 from the Freemont County line to Poncha Springs.
Clark is described as six feet three inches tall and weighing 200 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.
Chaffee police added he may be travelling with a woman with dark hair, though no further description of the woman was provided.
This shooting is just one of numerous that occurred in the past few days across the U.S.
Four people were wounded Monday night when a gunman opened fire in a Walmart in Beavercreek, Ohio, before apparently killing himself, police said.
On Sunday, a Tennessee man died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound while on the run after a series of shootings that killed four of his female relatives.
Officers found the body of Mavis Christian Jr., 52, in his car during a search following shootings at three locations in Memphis that left three women and a teenage girl dead and a teenage girl critically wounded, the Memphis Police Department said.
— with files from The Associated Press
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