COMO – Hertford County Sheriff Juan Vaughan said he’s all too familiar with the Bryantville Community Building in Como, and not in a good way.

Currently, Vaughan’s investigators are searching for a suspect that shot two men at the facility early Saturday morning. The Sheriff said this particular case isn’t the first time his officers have responded to a disturbance there.

“It seems like every time there’s an event there, a party there, we wind up getting a call about a fight or a shooting,” Vaughan said. “I need to sit down and have a talk with the person in charge of that building. They need to be more selective in who the building is rented to.

“Fights and shootings place those who are there to have a good time and behave themselves in danger. It places the Como community in danger; it places my responding deputies in danger. It needs to stop and stop now.”

When those deputies, initially answering a call concerning a fight at the Community Building, arrived early last Saturday morning (1:46 a.m.) they found two men had been shot – Karlus Smith of Como (wounded in the shoulder) and Carlos Lawrence of Franklin, VA (in the hip).

Vaughan said prior to the deputies’ arrival, both victims had been transported by private vehicles to local medical facilities – Smith to Vidant Roanoke-Chowan Hospital in Ahoskie, and Lawrence to Southampton Memorial Hospital in Franklin, VA.

“No one at the scene could inform my deputies of the identity of the suspect,” Vaughan said. “All they could share was that the suspect was a black male wearing a white t-shirt and that his hair was in short dreads. They said he left in the scene in a 90’s model Honda Accord. The state of registration of that vehicle is not known.”

Those with any additional information can call the Hertford County Sheriff’s Office at 252-358-7800.