Tulsa shootings spark unrest among blacks

TULSA, Okla. -- Tulsa's black community was on edge Saturday after police said the same attacker or attackers were behind a series of shootings a day earlier that left three people dead and two more critically wounded.

Police are still waiting for the results of forensic tests, but investigators think the early Friday morning shootings are linked because they happened around the same time within a three-mile radius and all five victims were out walking when they were shot.

Officer Jason Willingham said that police are searching for a white man driving a white pickup, which was spotted in the area of three of the shootings. At least two dozen officers are investigating, along with the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service, he said.

"We don't have one definitive way where this investigation is headed," Willingham said. "Right now, that's the only thing we have to go on."

Police don't believe the victims knew one another. All five victims are black, and black community leaders met Friday evening in an effort to calm unrest and promote safety.

"We have to handle this because there are a number of African-American males who are not going to allow this to happen in their neighborhood," said the Rev. Warren Blakney Sr., president of the Tulsa NAACP. "We're trying to quell the feeling of 'Let's get someone' and we will make as certain as we can that this isn't pushed under the rug."

Four of Friday's shooting victims were found in yards, and the fifth in a street. Police identified those killed as Dannaer Fields, 49, Bobby Clark, 54, and William Allen, 31. Fields was found wounded about 1 a.m. Friday, Clark was found in a street about an hour later, and Allen was discovered in the yard of a funeral home about 8:30 a.m., though investigators believe he was shot earlier.

Minutes after Fields was found, police found two men with gunshot wounds in another yard two blocks away. They were taken to hospitals in critical condition but were expected to survive, police said.