Texas Man at Large After Fatally Shooting Five Neighbors
A Texas neighborhood was left in shock after a man opened fire on his neighbors, killing five people, including an eight-year-old boy, and injuring none. The suspect, Francisco Oropeza, 38, used an AR-style rifle to commit the crime. The attack occurred around midnight on Friday in Cleveland, which is north of Houston, after neighbors approached Oropeza, requesting he stop firing rounds in his yard. However, he responded by telling them that it was his property. 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. All were shot “from the neck up,” according to the San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers. The victims were believed to be from Honduras, and it was not clear whether everyone at the home was a member of a single family.
The suspect has not been caught yet, and authorities have warned that he might still be armed. Capers said the authorities had widened their search efforts to as far as “10 to 20 miles” from the murder scene. He also stated that Oropeza might still have a weapon but believes authorities have the rifle used in the shooting. The shooting took place in a rural pothole-riddled street where single-story homes sit on wide 1-acre lots, surrounded by a thick canopy of trees.
This is 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. Texas has confronted multiple mass shootings in recent years, and Republican leaders in the state have continuously rejected calls for new firearm restrictions, including this year over the protests of several families whose children were killed in Uvalde.
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