The search for a Texas man who allegedly shot his neighbors after they told him to stop shooting gunfire in his yard extended into Sunday, with authorities saying the man could be anywhere now.
Francisco Oropeza, 38, fled after the shooting Friday night that killed five people, including an 8-year-old. San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Cabir said Saturday night that authorities have expanded the search to as far as 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the scene of the shooting.
On Sunday morning, the FBI’s Houston office released a new photo of Oropeza, taken in August 2022.
Capers said investigators found clothes and a phone while combing a rural area with thick layers of woodland, but the tracking dogs lost their scent.
Police found the AR-15 rifle Oropeza allegedly used in the shooting, the sheriff said, but authorities weren’t sure if he was carrying another weapon.
“It could be anywhere now,” Capers said.
Houston FBI
The attack occurred near the town of Cleveland, north of Houston, on a street some residents say neighbors often come to rest through the gunfire.
Capers said the victims ranged in age from 8 to 31 and were all believed to be from Honduras. He said all of them had been “shot from the neck up”.
The attack is the latest act of gun violence in a record pace of mass shootings in the United States so far this year, some of which also involved semi-automatic rifles.
The mass killings took place in a variety of places – a Nashville school, a Kentucky bank, a dance hall in Southern California, and now a rural Texas neighborhood inside a bungalow.
Capers said the house was home to 10 people — some of whom had just moved in earlier in the week — but no one else was injured. He said two of the victims were found in a bedroom lying on two children, apparently in an attempt to protect them.
Capers said that a total of three children who were found covered in blood in the house were taken to hospital but were found to be uninjured.
FBI spokeswoman Cristina Garza said investigators do not believe everyone in the home is from the same family. The victims are 25-year-old Sonia Argentine Guzman. Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31; Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18; and Daniel Enrique Laso, 8. It’s unclear how they were related but they all lived in the same house, CBS Houston affiliate KHOU reported.
Capers said the confrontation followed neighbors climbing a fence and telling the suspect to stop firing. The suspect responded by telling them it was his property, Capers said, and someone in the home obtained video of the suspect walking to the front door with the gun.
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The shooting took place on a potholed country street where single-storey homes are set on large one-acre plots surrounded by a dense canopy of trees. A horse was seen behind the victim’s home, while a dog and chickens roamed Oropeza’s front yard.
Rene Arevalo Sr., who lives a few homes, said he heard gunshots around midnight but didn’t think of anything.
“It’s a normal thing that people do here, especially on Fridays after work,” said Arevalo. “They come home and start drinking in their backyards and shooting in there.”
Capers said his deputies had been to Oropeza’s home at least once before and talked to him about “firing his gun in the yard.” It was not clear if any action was taken at that time. At a news conference Saturday night, the mayor said shooting a gun on your private property can be illegal, but did not say whether Oropeza had previously broken the law.
The newcomers to the home moved from Houston earlier in the week, Capers said, but he said he didn’t know if they planned to stay there.
Across the United States since January 1, there have been at least 18 mass shootings that have killed four or more people, according to Database Maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today, in partnership with Northeastern University. The violence erupted through a combination of motives: murder, suicide, and domestic violence. Gangster revenge school shooting and workplace vendetta.
Texas has faced several mass shootings in recent years, including last year’s attack in Rupp Primary School in Uvalde; a A racist attack at an El Paso Walmart in 2019; and a A gunman opened fire on a church in the small town of Sutherland Springs in 2017.
Republican leaders in Texas have consistently rejected calls for new gun restrictions, including this year over protests from several families whose children were killed in Uvalde.
A few months ago, Arevalo said Oropeza threatened to kill his dog after it got loose in the neighborhood and chased the bull into his truck.
“I tell my wife all the time, ‘Stay away from the neighbors. Don’t argue with them. You never know how they’re going to react,'” Arevalo said. “I tell her that because Texas is a state where you don’t know who has a gun and who is going to respond that way.”
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