4 Shot During Argument on Bourbon Street

NEW ORLEANS — Four people were wounded in gunfire on the city’s famed Bourbon Street as a costumed crowd partied amid the countdown to Mardi Gras, sending people running, the police and bystanders said.

Four shots were fired Saturday night, followed by screams, a video taken by a bystander and released by the police showed. The authorities said an argument involving some of those in the crowd led up to the shooting. No arrests were immediately reported and the police said they were seeking three men.

Those wounded included a man who was shot in the abdomen, thigh and pelvis along with another man and two women, a spokesman for the New Orleans Police, Frank B. Robertson, said. His statement said the others were also hit by gunshots: the man in the buttocks, one woman on the chin and right foot and the other on a toe.

The police had said late Saturday that the most severely wounded man was in critical condition and undergoing surgery while the others were stable. They did not give their names or ages.

The shooting came on the last weekend of partying before Mardi Gras, the Fat Tuesday celebration that is the signature tourist event of the year in New Orleans.

New Orleans has been plagued for years by violent crime, including gun violence that has soared since Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005.

The bystander’s video shows many people on the street in costumes before the shooting, a number of them apparently unaware of what is unfolding.

The police said two men initially were arguing with the man now in critical condition. According to the police, two of the people involved pulled back after the argument, but one of them returned with a third man and the shooting erupted and then they fled.