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Tuesday afternoon's burst of gunfire from a passing car on a
group of about a dozen people gathered in a parking lot outside
the shopping strip sent six men to the hospital, three of them
initially listed in critical condition, police said.
By Wednesday, all six victims were listed in stable condition,
but investigators had yet to identify any suspects or the
vehicle involved, High Point Police Department Captain Chris
Weisner told Reuters.
Even the gender of the two individuals in the car - a driver and
passenger - remained uncertain, he said.
In addition, Weisner said, investigators were looking into the
possibility that Wednesday's drive-by attack was connected to a
separate shooting the night before in which one of two victims,
a man aged 27, died the next day.
"There's no known connection, but they're looking to see if
there is a link" between the two shootings, the police captain
said, adding that no arrests had been made in either incident.
A third shooting that killed an 18-year-old victim early on
Christmas Eve is believed to be an isolated incident, according
to Weisner. He said "some arrests" were made in that
investigation on Wednesday but declined to give further details.
Weisner acknowledged that the flurry of gun violence was unusual
in such "a short time frame" for High Point, a municipality of
about 112,000 people that lies between Winston-Salem and
Greensboro in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina.
High Point, long known as a manufacturing hub in the state's
once-vibrant furniture industry, has been hit hard economically
over the past two decades by competition from abroad and from
elsewhere in the United States.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Culver City, Calif.; Editing by
Sandra Maler)
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