MERCED COUNTY (KFSN) -- The Sheriff's Office said one man is dead and two others injured after a shooting at a vacant house with a marijuana grow in the backyard.
The suspects are still on the loose and there aren't a lot of definitive answers as to the motive for this shooting. Sheriff Vern Warnke said the shooting happened inside and outside a home here on Maple Avenue, at a house that had a marijuana grow in the back.
Police received several calls of shots fired and first responders found one man dead outside on the curb. Two other men were taken by a private car to a local hospital, and one of those men was then flown to a hospital in Modesto with serious injuries.
Sheriff Warnke said their S.W.A.T. team showed up on scene after an operation earlier Tuesday related to last night's homicide in Atwater. "Looked like inside the house, outside the house, by all indications it was almost like O.K. Corral here, it looked pretty intense for a brief period of time and according to witness statements it was very very intense."
The sheriff said just a few weeks ago, their narcotics task force visited this home and removed all but twelve marijuana plants, which is the maximum allowed under the county ordinance.
Sheriff Warnke said they are still in the preliminary stages of the investigation, and will be out there well past dark.