A shooting at a Rhode Island youth hockey game on Monday left three people dead, including the shooter, and three others hospitalised in critical condition, authorities said.

Pawtucket Police Chief Tina Goncalves told reporters that the violent incident was quickly brought under control after someone intervened and tried to subdue the shooter, who had been attending the game to watch a family member.

The shooter died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Investigators are still working to determine the full circumstances.

“It appears that this was a targeted event, that it may be a family dispute,” Goncalves said. She identified the shooter as Robert Dorgan, also known as Roberta Esposito, born in 1969.

The police chief said both victims who died appeared to be adults.

Authorities are speaking with scores of witnesses who were inside Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket, just outside Providence, and reviewing video from the hockey game.

Unverified social media footage shows players diving for cover and spectators fleeing after gunshots were heard.

Outside the arena, families and high school players in uniform were seen hugging tearfully before boarding buses to leave the scene.

The shooting comes nearly two months after a gun violence incident at Brown University, where a gunman killed two students and wounded nine others before also killing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor.

That shooter, Claudio Neves Valente, was later found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot in New Hampshire.

Pawtucket Mayor Don Grebien said the incidents are not related but called the hockey game shooting “very tragic,” noting the victims were high school students and families attending a recreational event.

Pawtucket, a city of just under 80,000 north of Providence near the Massachusetts border, was until recently home to Hasbro’s headquarters.