Suspect still at-large after three people killed over property lines in Colorado

Authorities are searching for a man accused of killing three people and wounding another in a shooting Monday in southern Colorado that erupted over a property lines dispute.

Deputies around 1 p.m. responded to a call reporting multiple shots fired in a wooded area in Custer County, a rural part of the state about 60 miles southwest of Colorado Springs.

Within an hour, a SWAT team arrived, and the Custer County Sheriff's Department issued a shelter-in-place order. Responding officers and the suspect, identified as 45-year-old Hanme K. Clark, engaged in an hourslong standoff before Clark escaped. By 9 p.m., the shelter-in-place was lifted.

The sheriff's office said deputies discovered two men and a woman dead at the scene. A fourth victim was found wounded and was taken to a hospital in critical condition, according to the sheriff's office. She's expected to survive. Authorities have not released the names of the victims.

As of Tuesday morning, the suspect was still at large and believed to be driving a white Dodge Ram pickup truck with a topper and Colorado license plate BHLK27.

In a statement, the sheriff's department said the shooting "began with a suspected property dispute."

Custer County is a mountainous area just northeast of the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve and is home to about 4,700 people, according to the 2020 census.

The deadly shooting is the latest act of violence amid historically high levels of gun violence, which surged during the coronavirus pandemic. In recent years, firearm homicide rates across the United States have sharply increased. The Gun Violence Archive has tracked more than 38,000 gun deaths so far this year, and 608 mass shootings.