One person is dead and two others are seriously injured following a dispute in Winnipeg during which two vehicles plowed into a brawling crowd, police say.

The violence erupted early Saturday morning during a house party.

Officers described a chaotic scene when they arrived just before 3 a.m. CT outside a home on a residential street in the west end, following reports of a fight involving between 15 and 20 people.

Police said the melee began when a man and a woman became involved in a domestic dispute while members of the two families were socializing at the home on Garfield Street, just north of Yarwood Avenue. Other family members got involved and the fight spilled into the street.

Several people armed themselves with items, including bats and shovels, according to witnesses who also reported some of the injured tried to break up the fight.

That's when people involved in the fight got into the vehicles, and then drove into three people involved in the melee, according to police.

A minivan rests between two trees next to a house following the incident early Saturday on Garfield Street. Sheila North-Wilson/CBC

"The two vehicles were just sort of fighting each other — they looked like bulls that were hitting each other," said witness Marc Duguay, who lives nearby. "They would back up and they would ram each other, and I'm thinking, 'This is crazy,' and they would spin their tires and smoke was everywhere."

Three people struck by the vehicles were taken to hospital in critical condition, while three others injured in the brawl are listed in stable condition, police said in a news conference Saturday morning.

On Saturday afternoon, police said one of the injured people, an adult man, had died. One adult man remains in hospital in critical condition and an adult woman is in hospital in serious condition.

Everyone else was treated and released, police said.

"No arrest(s) have been made at this time," police said in their update, issued around 3:45 p.m. "The investigation is continuing by members of the homicide unit."

A minivan rested between trees at the side of a home at the scene mid-Saturday as investigators scoured the site for clues.

"It was like the set of a violent movie," the CBC's Sheila North-Wilson said.