Shooting, preceded by a fight among some of the men, near Lexington early Saturday also left eight people wounded

Three people were killed and eight others were wounded in central Mississippi early Saturday when at least two people fired guns at a group of several hundred people who were celebrating a high school football team’s homecoming win at an outdoor trail several hours after the game had ended, authorities said.

The mass shooting near the community of Lexington was preceded by a fight among some of the men at the celebration, but deputies had not yet learned what sparked the fight, said Holmes county sheriff Willie March.

Anywhere from 200 to 300 people were on the trail celebrating, and the gunfire sent them fleeing, the sheriff said in a phone interview with the Associated Press.

“It was chaos, to tell you the truth,” March said. “The shooting just started and people started running.”