WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Texas police are searching for a gunman who opened fire indiscriminately on Sunday at a Halloween party attended by hundreds of university students, killing at least two people and wounding 16 before fleeing into chaos, police said.

The authorities said they believed that a man, who was not identified, might have gone to the ceremony outside the campus targeting a specific person and then shot the crowd.

"We think this is an individual incident," Hunt County police chief Randy Mix told a news conference. "Maybe the target was someone there."

A total of 16 people, including five students, were treated for injuries and 12 of them were shot, Mix said.