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Law enforcement is on a manhunt for the gunman who killed five people, including an 8-year-old boy, late Friday night. The suspect was shooting his AR-15-style rifle in his front yard when his neighbor asked him to stop so his baby could go to sleep.
The gunman, who authorities have identified as 38-year-old Francisco Oropeza, fled after allegedly going on a rampage with his AR-15-style weapon in his neighbor’s home. Federal and state law enforcement are working to locate the gunman, who is believed to be armed and dangerous.
“Our No. 1 priority … has been to locate this suspect and put him behind bars where he belongs,” San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said.
Authorities believe the suspect is within a 10- to 20-square-mile radius of the scene of the shooting in Cleveland, which is about 40 miles northeast of downtown Houston.
Law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, searched a heavily wooded area near the victims’ home Saturday and have since expanded their search. A judge has issued an arrest warrant for the suspect with a $5 million bond.
Federal and state authorities have recovered the gun used in the shooting but say the suspect could be carrying a smaller weapon. Officials found the suspect’s cellphone and articles of his clothing, but police dogs lost his scent.
The state is offering a $50,000 reward for information about the shooter, Gov. Greg Abbott announced on Sunday. Department of Public Safety troopers also joined the manhunt.
“He could be anywhere right now,” James Smith, special agent in charge of the FBI Houston office, said at a news conference Saturday afternoon. “We believe he’s on foot but we don’t know.”
The shooter was reportedly drunk and shooting his gun outside on his front porch. Wilson Garcia told ABC13 he asked the shooter to be quiet because his 1-month-old baby was trying to sleep inside. Garcia warned he would call the police.
The suspect went inside his house, came back out with an AR-15-style rifle and shot Garcia’s wife at the family’s front door, Garcia said. He then went from room to room looking for more victims, Garcia said. There were 10 people in the house at the time of the shooting.
Two of the victims, a 21-year old woman and a 31-year-old woman, were found using their bodies to shield three small children, who survived. Investigators said that each victim had been shot from the neck up.
As authorities search for the gunman, the Cleveland community grieves the five victims. Law enforcement has identified the victims as Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25; Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31; Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18; and Daniel Enrique Laso, 8.
Vianey Balderas, who has lived in the neighborhood for three years, described the victims to the Washington Post as happy. They helped her around the house and supported her when her father died, she said.
“They were a very happy family. Christian. They were kind,” Balderas said. “They would never say no to us. They were always helping us. … They were always there.”
All of the victims were from Honduras, but they were not all related.
The killings and the subsequent manhunt come as families of the Uvalde school shooting are calling on Texas lawmakers to change the law on who can purchase semi-automatic guns. The gunman in the Uvalde school shooting also used an AR-15-style weapon.
In the first legislative session since the May 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, parents of the victims lined up to testify in support of a bill that would raise the minimum age to buy semi-automatic guns from 18 to 21. House Bill 2744 was left pending in committee.
In the face of decades of mass shootings in Texas, state leaders have repeatedly batted away measures that would limit access to guns, opting instead to ease restrictions on publicly carrying weapons while making it harder for local governments to regulate them.
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