The suspect in a shooting that left five people dead in North Carolina's capital city is a 15-year-old male, the local police chief confirmed on Friday, saying that he was in critical condition.

Police have yet to determine a motive for the shooting, which on Thursday turned a quiet middle-class neighborhood in Raleigh into a two-mile crime scene, Police Chief Estella Patterson said during a news conference on Friday.

Patterson did not identify the suspect by name.

He was taken into custody three hours after the shooting began in Raleigh's Hedingham neighborhood. After a long search, police apprehended him along the Neuse River Greenway, a trail where he had fled and shot more people.

"No one should feel this fear in the communities - no one," Gov. Roy Cooper said during the briefing, calling the incident an "infuriating and tragic act of gun violence."

Patterson did not provide details on the shooting itself and could not say whether the suspect is related to the victims.

Two people were wounded in the shooting: a police officer who was treated and released, and another person who was hospitalized in critical condition, Patterson said.

(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Chicago; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)