Two officials from the US embassy have suffered gunshot wounds during an altercation at a strip club in Venezuela's capital, police and US state department officials said. Their injuries were not considered life-threatening.
The circumstances of the shooting were unclear, with conflicting reports over whether it happened inside or outside the Antonella 2012 nightclub.
Police said the two US officials were shot following a brawl inside the club, which is in the basement of a shopping centre in the upper-middle-class Chacao district. A woman who works at the club said the two men got into a fight with each other.
"Apparently it was a fight originating in a nightspot where these people were attacked and shots were fired at them and they suffered gunshot wounds," a police spokesman, Douglas Rico, told the TV channel Globovision at the health clinic where the victims were taken. He said one was shot in the leg and abdomen and the other in the abdomen.
A police official identified one of the victims as military attache Roberto Ezequiel Rosas. She said he was shot in the right leg.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said she had no information on suspects.
Deisy Ron, who identified herself as the club's artistic director, said she was not at the club, but employees told her the men got into an argument and began throwing punches inside the club.
"They were fighting with each other," she said. "One of them pulled out a gun and shot the other in the stomach and the leg."
Ron said she did not know how the other man was injured or how he managed to bring a firearm inside the club, which has metal detectors at the entrance.
In Washington, a state department spokesman, William Ostick, confirmed that "two members of the US embassy in Caracas were injured during an incident early this morning".
"Medical staff inform us that their injuries do not appear to be life-threatening," Ostick said. "Embassy security and health unit personnel are at the hospital and have been in touch with the two individuals and their families."
An Associated Press reporter who went to the scene saw no obvious signs of a shooting, though plain-clothes police officers were investigating the area outside the club.
A Spanish sign saying "gun-free zone" and with a pistol crossed out is posted next to the entrance. Another sign says the club does not allow entry to couples, unaccompanied women or anyone under 30.