DENVER (AP) — A man was on the run Tuesday after police say he fatally shot three people and critically wounded a fourth over a years-long property dispute over the use of an easement on the suspect’s property in rural Colorado, authorities said.
The 45-year-old suspect, Hanme K. Clark, was believed to be driving a 2017 white Ram 1500 pickup truck with a camper shell, said Custer County Sheriff Lloyd Rich Smith. He said at a midday news conference that they were narrowing in on the suspect and hoped he would surrender peacefully.
Smith said the property dispute — which included a lawsuit filed by the suspect in 2020 — had led sheriff’s deputies to the property several times in recent years. But there was no indication that it would lead to violence, Smith said.
The suspect was part of ownership of a business called Herbal Gardens. The website said it is dedicated to promoting health and well-being through the use of herbal remedies.
The shooting took place on the property line in a wooded area Monday afternoon, sending deputies to Rocky Ridge Road, about 8 miles (13 kilometers) from the county seat of Westcliffe and about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of Colorado Springs.
Two men and a woman died at the scene and a fourth person was taken to a trauma center in critical condition but was expected to survive, the sheriff’s office said. Their names were not immediately released.
One person witnessed the shooting and fled to safety, providing law enforcement with key information, Smith said.
Residents of the wooded, rural area were told to shelter in place for five hours on Monday as authorities sought to take Clark into custody but later lifted.
Residents in a part of nearby Chaffee County told to shelter in place after a surveillance camera spotted Clark’s truck at a Walmart in Salida. It left and headed toward a residential area nearby. After a search overnight using drones, a Denver police helicopter and officers on the ground, the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday it believes Clark has likely left the area. The office lifted the shelter in place order.
A telephone message left for a lawyer who represented Clark in a lawsuit over access to property was not immediately returned.
It was one of several mass shootings that occurred in the past few days around the country.
Four people were wounded Monday night when a in a Walmart in Beavercreek, Ohio, before apparently killing himself, police said.
On Sunday, a Tennessee man gunshot wound while on the run after a series of shootings that killed four of his female relatives.
Officers found the body of Mavis Christian Jr., 52, in his car during a search following shootings at three locations in Memphis that left three women and a teenage girl dead and a teenage girl critically wounded, the Memphis Police Department said.
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