Cleveland shooting: In a shocking incident, a Texas man killed five of his neighbours after they asked him to stop firing rounds in his yard because they were trying to sleep. According to the authorities, the man went next door with a rifle and fatally shot five of his neighbours, including an 8-year-old boy on Saturday.
The suspect, identified as 38-year-old Francisco Oropeza, remained at large more than 18 hours after the shooting and authorities warned that he might still be armed. The attack happened just before midnight Friday near the town of Cleveland, north of Houston, on a street where some residents say it is not uncommon to hear neighbours unwind by firing off guns.
Accused roaming with arms
San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said 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 “10 to 20 miles” from the murder scene. He said Oropeza may still have a weapon but that he believes authorities have the rifle used in the shooting.
Capers said they found clothes and a phone while combing a rural area that includes dense layers of the forest but that tracking dogs had lost the scent.
“He could be anywhere now,” Capers said.
Capers said the victims were between the ages of 8 and 31 years old and that all were believed to be from Honduras. All were shot “from the neck up,” he said.
Some of the victims recently moved to the shooting area
The attack was the latest act of gun violence in what has been a record pace of mass shootings in the US so far this year, some of which have also involved semiautomatic rifles.
The mass killings have played out in a variety of places — a Nashville school, a Kentucky bank, a Southern California dance hall, and now a rural Texas neighbourhood inside a single-story home.
Capers said there were 10 people in the house — some of whom has 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.
8-year-old boy killed in shooting
FBI spokesperson Christina Garza said investigators do not believe everyone at the home was a member 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, 8.
The confrontation followed the neighbours 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, Capers said, and one person in the house got a video of the suspect walking up to the front door with the rifle.
Mass shootings in US surged in recent years
Across the US since January 1, there have been at least 18 shootings that left four or more people dead. The violence is sparked by a range of motives: murder-suicides and domestic violence; gang retaliation; school shootings; and workplace vendettas.
Texas has confronted multiple mass shootings in recent years, including last year’s attack at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde; a racist attack at an El Paso Walmart in 2019; and a gunman opening fire at a church in the tiny town of Sutherland Springs in 2017.
Republican leaders in Texas have continually rejected calls for new firearm restrictions, including this year over the protests of several families whose children were killed in Uvalde.
(With inputs from AP)
