A Texas man went next door with a rifle and fatally shot five of his neighbors, including an eight-year-old boy, after they asked him to stop firing rounds in his yard because they were trying to sleep, authorities said on Saturday.
The suspect, identified as 38-year-old Francisco Oropeza, remained at large more than 18 hours after the shooting, and authorities said that he might still be armed.
The attack happened just before midnight on Friday near the town of Cleveland, north of Houston, on a street where some residents say it is not uncommon to hear neighbors unwind by firing off guns.
Photo: AP
Oropeza used an AR-style rifle, and as the search for him dragged into Saturday evening, authorities had widened their efforts to as far as 16km to 32km from the murder scene, San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said.
He said Oropeza might still have a weapon, but he believes authorities have the rifle used in the shooting.
Clothes and a phone were found while authorities were combing a rural area that includes dense layers of forest, but the tracking dogs had lost the scent, Capers said.
“He could be anywhere now,” he added.
Capers said the victims were between the ages of eight and 31, and all were believed to be from Honduras.
They were all shot “from the neck up,” he said.
Capers said there were 10 people in the house — some of whom had just moved there earlier in the week — but that no one else was injured.
He said two of the victims were found in a bedroom laying over two children in an apparent attempt to shield them.
A total of three children found covered in blood in the home were taken to a hospital, but found to be uninjured, he said.
FBI spokesperson Christina Garza said that investigators do not believe everyone at the home are members of a single family.
The victims were identified as Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25, Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21, Julisa Molina Rivera, 31, Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18, and Daniel Enrique Laso, eight.
The confrontation followed the neighbors walking up to the fence and asking the suspect to stop shooting rounds, Capers said.
The suspect responded by telling them that it was his property, and one person in the house recorded video footage of the suspect walking up to the front door with the rifle, he said.
Rene Arevalo Sr, who lives a few houses down, said he heard gunshots around midnight but didn’t think anything of it.
“It’s a normal thing people do around here, especially on Fridays after work,” Arevalo said. “They get home and start drinking in their backyards and shooting out there.”
Capers said his deputies had been to Oropeza’s home at least once before and spoken with him about “shooting his gun in the yard.”
It was not clear whether any action was taken at the time.
Since Jan. 1, there have been at least 18 shootings in the US that left four or more people dead, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today, in partnership with Northeastern University.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
Hundreds of thousands of Guyana citizens living at home and abroad would receive a payout of about US$478 each after the country announced it was distributing its “mind-boggling” oil wealth. The grant of 100,000 Guyanese dollars would be available to any citizen of the South American country aged 18 and older with a valid passport or identification card. Guyanese citizens who normally live abroad would be eligible, but must be in Guyana to collect the payment. The payout was originally planned as a 200,000 Guyanese dollar grant for each household in the country, but was reframed after concerns that some citizens, including
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
RSS