Two men opened fire inside a bar in Kansas City, Kansas, early Sunday, killing four people and wounding five others in a shooting believed to have stemmed from an earlier dispute, police said.
Authorities were searching Sunday for the two gunmen, said Officer Thomas Tomasic, a police spokesman.
He said the two men had apparently gotten into some sort of disagreement with people inside Tequila KC Bar, left, then returned with handguns.
“We think there was something that happened in the bar earlier probably,” Tomasic said.
“Unfortunately, they left and decided to take it to another level, came back and started shooting.” Around 40 people were inside the small bar when gunfire erupted around 1.30 am, Tomasic said.
The gunfire sent people running for the exits, with the injured leaving trails of blood as they fled.
One of the injured was trying to get a ride to the hospital when ambulances arrived.
“It’s a pretty small bar, so if you have two guys come in and start shooting, people are just running, running anywhere they can,” Tomasic said.
All four men who were killed were Hispanic, but Tomasic said authorities do not believe the shooting was racially motivated.
The shooting happened in a neighbourhood with a large Hispanic population.
Tomasic cautioned that police were still investigating exactly what happened.
He said they were reviewing surveillance video and interviewing witnesses while looking for the gunmen.
“Obviously being a bar at 1:30, stories vary a lot,” he said.