(Reuters) – A gunman shot five people, killing three of them, in a black neighbourhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in a shooting spree that left residents on edge and sparked an intensive manhunt yesterday.
Three men and one woman were shot within a mile (1.6 km) of each other in north Tulsa at around 1 am on Friday morning, police said.
The body of a fifth victim, 31-year-old William Allen, was discovered outside a nearby funeral home in the predominantly black part of the city after 8 am on Friday. Police said he was likely shot at about the same time as the others.
Police described the suspect as a white man driving a white pickup truck.
Though all five of the victims were black, Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan said it was too early to know whether the shootings were racially motivated.
“The whole race issue, the hate crime issue, there’s a very logical theory that would say that’s what it could be, but I’m a police officer, I’ve got to go by the evidence,” Jordan said, adding that no racial slurs had been used by the gunman.
“It‘s just not time for us to say that,” Jordan said. “Right now I’m worried about more of my citizens being murdered.” Police identified the other people killed as Dannaer Fields, 49, and Bobby Clark, 54.
The names of the two survivors were not released and authorities said only that they were expected to survive.
Agents from the FBI and US Marshals Service were helping Tulsa police hunt for the suspect.
Tulsa City Councilman Jack Henderson, who represents the district in which the shootings took place, said members of the community were anxious knowing a gunman was at large.