Police were searching Tuesday for a gunman who fired into a crowded downtown bar near the University of Alabama campus, hitting nearly a dozen people and critically injuring one.

The gunman stood outside of the bar for a few moments, targeted someone inside and fired through a window, Tuscaloosa Police Chief Steve Anderson said. Customers inside the Copper Top bar ran outside or crawled away, and the gunman opened fire again with a military-style assault weapon.

Police were looking into whether the bar shooting at 12:30 a.m. Tuesday was connected to a shooting about 45 minutes earlier at a home just a couple of miles away. Two people who lived there were involved in that shooting, and one was wounded, Anderson said.

Police were not sure exactly what prompted the shootings.

Witnesses at the bar described a bloody and chaotic scene, with glass and debris flying around a nightclub that caters to college students by offering 50-cent draft beer.