Local rapper wounded in Houston strip club shooting

HOUSTON (AP) — A shooting early Wednesday outside a strip club in southwest Houston left at least three people dead and two injured, city police said.

Police spokesman Victor Senties said a huge crowd was assembled in the club’s parking lot soon after 3 a.m. when the shooting took place and he urged any witnesses to come forward and help investigators identify those involved.

“There were hundreds of people in that parking lot. Somebody must have seen or heard something. We desperately need someone to come forward,” he said.

No one has been taken into custody.

Early Wednesday morning, at least 50 people milled around the yellow police tape strung around the Scores Cabaret strip club in a Southwest Houston strip mall where there is also a furniture store, a hair salon and other businesses. A few police officers processed the scene.

“I didn’t see any shooters. It was more than one because there were too many gunshots,” eyewitness Rick Cook told KTRK-TV.

Two men and a woman died at the scene and two men have been taken to a hospital with gunshot wounds, Senties said. He had no information about their conditions. He described the woman who was killed as an innocent bystander.

Witnesses at the scene told KTRK-TV that more than 20 shots were fired in the parking lot of Scores Cabaret strip club. Senties did not name the club but he provided a street address for the shooting that is the same as the address for Scores Cabaret.

Senties said investigators did not yet know what sparked the shootings.

___

Associated Press writers Diana Heidgerd in Dallas and Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Houston contributed to this report.