Three people were taken to area hospitals early Sunday morning, after someone fired eight shots outside Last Call, a downtown private club.

Two of the three victims are employees of Last Call, the Lawrence Police Department reported Sunday afternoon.

The third victim, a 15-year-old Topeka boy, had been inside the club before the shooting occurred.

Within an hour after the shooting, police had stopped a car on Interstate 70 in Topeka, said Lawrence police Capt. Dan Affalter.

“We stopped it because it matches the vehicle,” he said. “We don’t know if it’s the car.”

But Sunday afternoon, police would not provide any more details about the vehicle. And they would not comment on whether anyone was in custody relating to the shootings.

Lawrence police also provided a more detailed narrative of the events of Sunday morning.

A crowd gathered outside the front door as a male customer was being removed. A disturbance occurred among club employees, security personnel, the man being ejected and associates of that man.

The suspect fired multiple shots toward the crowd of people from the driveway leading from the city parking lot, just north of the front entrance to the club.

The shooting suspect was described as a black male, approximately 5-foot-7, 140 to 150 pounds, possibly wearing a black coat. The suspect was last seen in a small, dark-colored vehicle driven north on New Hampshire by another person.

Affalter said one of the employees was shot in the back and was found about a half-block south of Last Call, near Eighth and New Hampshire streets. That victim was taken to Lawrence Memorial Hospital and then flown by air ambulance to Kansas University Hospital in Kansas City, Kan.

A second employee was shot in the foot and taken to LMH.

Affalter said the 15-year-old, who also was shot in the foot, was taken by private vehicle to LMH and then transferred to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.

The police captain described the scene outside the controversial private club, 729 N.H., as “mass chaos” following the shooting.

“A lot of people were leaving,” he said. “We’ve got a lot to sort out.”

Alex Hormell, who was sitting in his pickup truck in a parking lot on the east side of New Hampshire Street at the time of the shooting, said he heard yelling and screaming before shots were fired.

“I could see people running down the street,” said Hormell, who owns a cleaning service, Kellex Services, which handles the Hobbs-Taylor building.

Hormell said he was considering applying for a concealed-carry permit, because of the problems at the private club.

“This shouldn’t be happening in this kind of town,” he said.

On Nov. 30, officials with the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control division refused to renew Last Call’s liquor license. But on at least some weekends, the club has been open as a bring-your-own-booze establishment.

And last week, owner Dennis Steffes asked a Shawnee County District judge to restore his liquor license, while he appealed the ABC ruling. The city has been a proponent of shutting down the club because of drug use and violence around the establishment. Steffes said the city’s action against him is racially motivated. Last Call plays hip-hop music and attracts mostly African-American customers.

In May 2006, seven shots were fired inside the club, sending several hundred people rushing outside the club. No one was injured in that incident.

Many other crimes also have been linked to the club.

Among them was a shooting three weeks ago along Kansas Highway 10 east of Lawrence. Before the shooting, both the victims and the two suspects – all from Kansas City, Mo. – had been ordered out of Last Call.

That incident was similar to one that occurred in November with tragic results. Several Last Call patrons were thrown out of the club and later got into a gun battle on Interstate 435 in Kansas City, Mo. The shooting involved 12 men and several vehicles and left one man dead. Kansas City prosecutors charged four men with 20 felonies, including second-degree murder.