UNITED STATES. Texas: In Cleveland, Texas, a man allegedly shot and murdered five of his neighbours, including an 8-year-old boy, after some of them urged him to stop firing a semiautomatic rifle in his front yard because it was keeping their infant awake, police stated on Saturday.
Police officials were still looking for the perpetrators who shot the neighbours late on Friday night inside their home using an AR-15-style gun, said Greg Capers, Sheriff of San Jacinto County.
Eighteen hours after the assault, sheriff’s deputies and FBI agents continued their hunt for the suspect, 38-year-old Francisco Oropeza, in a neighbouring wooded area, said Capers.
“We are tracking him with dogs, men on horseback, and drones in the air,” stated Carpers. In the search area, law enforcement had discovered some discarded clothing and an abandoned cell phone, Capers added.
Other news organisations cited him as saying that every victim had been shot in the head “almost execution-style.”
The police stated that all five victims were Hondurans. Around 11:31 p.m., Capers’ office officials received a call about harassment from Cleveland, a city 45 miles north of Houston. When they arrived at the scene, they discovered numerous victims who had been shot, Carpers stated.
Ten people were present at the home at the time of the attack, Carpers stated, but only five of them survived.
The victims were identified as Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31; Daniel Enrique Laso, 8; and Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18. The FBI said they all appeared to reside in the same house but were not a single family.
Honduras’ foreign minister, Enrique Reina, said that the Honduran consulate contacted the Texas authorities.
He posted on Twitter, saying, “We demand that the full weight of the law be applied against the person responsible for this crime.”
The assailant stepped out of his home and began firing shots in his yard on Friday night when some of the victims came out to confront the suspect.
“The man walked over to the fence and said, ‘Hey, we’re trying to keep the baby asleep in here,” said Capers.
“Then both parties returned to their homes. Oropeza topped off his magazine and walked down his driveway onto the street before going inside the people’s house and starting shooting,” Carpers added.
Capers said that the police had been summoned to his home a few times over complaints about the noise Oropeza made when shooting his gun in his yard.
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