Authorities are searching for a man accused of killing three people and wounding another in a shooting Monday in southern Colorado that erupted following a dispute over property lines.
Around 1 p.m., deputies responded to a call reporting several shots fired in a wooded area in Custer County, a rural part of the state located about 60 miles southwest of Colorado Springs.
Within an hour, a SWAT team arrived and the Custer County Sheriff’s Department issued a shelter-in-place order. Responding officers and the suspect, identified as 45-year-old Hanme K. Clark, engaged in a standoff lasting several hours before Clark escaped. Around 9 p.m., the shelter-in-place was lifted.
The sheriff’s office said officers found two men and a woman dead at the scene. A fourth victim was found injured and taken to the hospital in critical condition, according to the sheriff’s office. She is expected to survive. Authorities have not released the names of the victims.
As of Tuesday morning, the suspect was still at large and was driving a white Dodge Ram pickup truck with a roof and Colorado license plate BHLK27.
In a statement, the sheriff’s department said the shooting “started with an alleged property dispute.”
Custer County is a mountainous area just northeast of Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve and is home to approximately 4,700 people, according to the 2020 census.
The deadly shooting is the latest act of violence amid historically high levels of gun violence, which have increased during the coronavirus pandemic. In recent years, gun homicide rates have increased sharply in the United States. Gun violence records have documented more than 38,000 gun deaths so far this year and 608 mass shootings.
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