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Authorities said they believed the unidentified male suspect may
have gone to the sprawling event facility where the off-campus
party was held intending to shoot a particular person, and fired
his handgun into the crowd afterwards.
"We believe this is a separate incident," Hunt County Sheriff
Randy Meeks told a news conference on Sunday morning. "There
might have been someone there who was targeted."
The shooting happened around midnight on Saturday in Greenville,
about 50 miles (80 kms) northeast of Dallas, shortly after
deputies went to a hangar-like facility called The Party Venue
to deal with parking violations, Meeks said.
More than 750 partygoers, many of them students at a campus of
Texas A & M University in Commerce, about 15 miles (24 kms)
away, were at the party when shots were fired near the back of
the facility, he said.
"When the shots were fired it was complete chaos as people fled
for safety and deputies attempted to locate the shooter," Meeks
said, adding that some people cut themselves on broken glass as
they tried to squeeze through windows.
A total of 16 people, including four or five students, sought
treatment for injuries, 12 of them for gunshot wounds, Meeks
said, adding that their conditions were not known. The two
partygoers who were killed were not identified.
The investigation, which was being aided by the Texas Rangers
and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was hampered by a lack
of cooperation from those in attendance, Meeks said.
"It appalls me that as many folks that were there have not been
able to give us a better description of this shooter," he said,
adding that investigators had interviewed 20 people.
"With this many people there, normally we would have a really
good description of the shooter," he added.
Later, on Sunday night, gunfire erupted during a vigil held for
the victims shot at the homecoming party, an NBC Dallas-Fort
Worth reporter, tweeted.
"Our news unit was hit at least three times," she said, adding
that she had not seen anyone injured.
The Dallas Police Department was not immediately available to
comment on reports regarding gunfire at the vigil.
(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York, additional reporting by
Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru; Editing by Nick Zieminski and
Himani Sarkar)
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