El Paso Shooter Opens Fire into Crowd, Wounds 11

EL PASO, Texas - El Paso Police and Military Police are investigating a shooting that happened around 2:00 am Sunday morning outside an Eastside nightclub.

A police officer at the scene told our crew that Military Personnel were involved in the shooting.

According to EPPD, nearly a dozen people were shot in the parking lot outside the popular club Graham Central Station at 1840 Lee Trevino Drive. Witnesses said a fight broke out inside the club, which was hosting a "hip-hop" night. Bouncers then kicked everyone involved outside, where the fight escalated. 

The shooting occurred around 2 a.m. as hundreds of people emptied out of Graham Central Station, a four-club venue at 1840 Lee Treviño in the Vista Hills Shopping Center. What followed was described as several minutes of chaos.

Police said the shooting is gang-related.

The names and ages of the five women and six men wounded were not available.

At least six of the 11 shooting victims were taken to Thomason Hospital, where two victims were listed in critical condition, hospital spokeswoman Margaret Althoff-Olivas said.

El Paso police spokesman Officer Chris Mears said both victims listed in critical condition are women.

Other victims from Sunday's shooting were taken to Beaumont Army Medical Center.

At least three soldiers were involved in some way in the incident, Fort Bliss spokeswoman Jean Offutt said.

Military police from Fort Bliss are assisting in the investigation that is led by the El Paso Police Department's Crimes Against Persons Unit and Drive-by Shooting Response Team.

Sunday afternoon, most of the sprawling parking lot used by the nightclub and other businesses remained cordoned off and empty. The police mobile command center, parked in the lot, bustled with activity.

Ricky Escamilla, a promoter of a weekly hip-hop music show at Tejano Rose -- one of the four clubs at Graham Central Station -- said the early morning scene outside was one of bedlam.

"Some of our guys are in the military and they went out to render aid and took off their shirts to help stop the bleeding," Escamilla said, adding that some of the more seriously wounded were women. "It was frightening and we are all still a little shook up about it."

Randy Elam, an area supervisor for Graham Central Station, called the shooting an isolated incident and said it might have originated inside Tejano Rose.

"I heard that there was a little confrontation inside the Tejano Rose, that a guy was bothering some women and they got the guy out," Elam said.

About 22 security guards were working at the club when the incident occurred, Elam said, adding that the weekly hip-hop shows at Tejano Rose will be discontinued.

"We just feel like (hip hop) might be part of what happened," Elam said.

Escamilla said he hoped the hip-hop shows continue.

"We have been doing this for three months and we have not had problems," he said. "It's an unfortunate situation, and our prayers are with the people who were hurt."

Mears said Sunday's shooting was an anomaly for the city."In my 14 years here, I can't remember a single case where 11 people were shot, where that many people were shot," he said. "We're very fortunate that nobody has died."

El Paso suffered its last major shooting in November 1996 when seven people were wounded outside Metropolis nightclub. Police said then that Richard Anthony Jones, 31, fought with several people inside the East El Paso nightclub and later waited outside with a shotgun. No one died in that shooting.