Shootings at a party in North Carolina kill 2 and injure several others

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MAXTON, N.C. (AP) — Shootings at a large outdoor Halloween party in southeastern North Carolina early Saturday killed two people — one of them 16 years old — and wounded several others, a sheriff said.

Robeson County Sheriff Burnis Wilkins' office said that 13 people were shot at the party held at a home in a rural area outside of Maxton, which is about 95 miles (150 kilometers) southwest of Raleigh near the South Carolina border.

Wilkins said the shootings stemmed from two groups attending the event that attracted more than 300 people, with ages in attendance ranging from pre-teenagers to about 50.

"There’s a lot of interviews taking place, but apparently there was a confrontation between a couple of groups of people and then gunfire between those two started,” Wilkins told WBTW-TV.

The sheriff's office later Saturday identified the other fatal shooting victim as 49-year-old Jessie Locklear Jr. of Lumberton.

The office said the 11 others shot range in age from 17 to 43. One of the wounded was taken to a medical facility with life-threatening injuries, while several remain hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, a sheriff's news release said. Others were treated and released.

No arrests had been made as of Saturday afternoon. But the sheriff said his office had multiple persons of interest related to the shootings, The Robesonian reported. His office said that there was no current threat to the community.

Wilkins said his office believes multiple people fired shots and multiple weapons were used, the newspaper said.

Sheriff’s deputies had been sent about 1:15 a.m. to what was the party’s location on a loud music complaint. But before they arrived, local 911 operators received reports of the shootings, a news release said.

“This was yet another senseless act of gun violence that has taken the lives of two individuals and left many others seriously injured,” Wilkins said in the release. “What makes this even more disturbing is the involvement of teenagers, alcohol, and guns at a large house party." Alcohol law enforcement agencies also are involved in the investigation, his office said.

More than 150 people fled the location before law enforcement officers arrived, Wilkins’ office said, while asking that anyone with information about what happened or who were at the scene to contact sheriff’s investigators.

Wilkins said law enforcement wasn’t initially aware of the party because the crowd number was below the local threshold to obtain a permit, news outlets reported.

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This story corrects the age of the adult killed in the shooting as 49, not 47.