A manhunt is underway after three people were shot and killed and one was injured in rural Colorado on Monday following what authorities said was a “suspected property dispute.”
Two men and a woman were fatally shot, while another woman was treated in a hospital trauma unit but was expected to survive, according to the Custer County Sheriff’s Office. None of the victims have been named.
The suspect, identified as Hanme K. Clark, was driving a White Ram 1500 pickup truck with a topper and a Colorado license plate that read BHLK27. His vehicle was last seen in Chaffee County and he remains at large.
The sheriff’s office responded to a report of shots fired near the town of Westcliffe, about 80 miles south of Colorado Springs, just before 1 p.m. Monday.
A SWAT team arrived 20 minutes later. Sheriff Rich Smith said at a news conference Tuesday that the location is a “remote area of the county.”
Deputies used thermal imaging, night vision and drones during the search. Local residents were asked to stay inside while authorities searched for the suspect. The shelter-in-place order was lifted at 20.13
The sheriff’s office said the shooting happened at 173 Rocky Ridge Road, in a wooded area on a property line. The suspect and neighbors in the area had previously complained about each other, Sheriff Smith said.
“We’ve been to this suspect’s house several times,” he told reporters, noting that deputies deal with property line disputes every day.
“The county actually started in 1876, right after the Civil War, and the lines aren’t as formal as they would be in the big city, and so there’s a lot of this that has to be straightened out in the courts to figure out where property lines are,” he explained.
Anyone with information on Clark’s location is asked to call 911.
