TWO people were fatally shot and at least 12 others sustained gunshot wounds after a gunman opened fire at a crowded homecoming party in Greenville, Texas, early Sunday, the police said.
Sheriff’s deputies were responding to a complaint about attendees at the party having parked their cars illegally on the shoulder of Highway 380, Chief Deputy Buddy Oxford of the Hunt County Sheriff’s Department said.
A little after midnight and while deputies were still there, a gunman opened fire on partygoers with a handgun, Sheriff Randy Meeks said at a news conference Sunday morning.
Meeks said the gunman had come through a back door and shot a “target victim.” The other victims were shot at random, he said.
“That is our theory with what circumstantial evidence we have,” Meeks said.
There were about 750 people at the party when the police arrived, the sheriff said, but not many of the partygoers were cooperating with investigators.
No officers were injured. The names of those killed and injured were not released.
In addition to the 12 wounded by gunfire, two other partygoers sustained unspecified injuries. At an earlier news conference, officials said they believed the gunman had used a semi-automatic rifle, but they later said they believed it had been a handgun.
The shooting took place in Greenville, about 50 miles northeast of Dallas, at a Texas A&M University-Commerce homecoming party that had not been sanctioned by the school, officials said. About five of those injured were students of the university, which is in nearby Commerce.
The university did not respond to an email Sunday morning.
“Everybody just left as they could. There was a big scramble,” Oxford said of the shooting scene. “The rest of them just left on their own, went to the hospital to seek medical attention.”
The injured were from the Texas cities of Arlington, Commerce, Dallas, Fort Worth and Greenville, officials said. - NEW YORK TIMES