The suspect charged with capital murder in the shooting death of a Texas corporal during a Houston traffic stop last weekend is a citizen of El Salvador and previously entered the U.S. illegally, ICE confirmed Thursday.
Jose Oscar Rosales, a 50-year-old citizen of El Salvador, was arrested Wednesday in Ciudad de Acuña, Mexico, for the killing of Harris County Corporal Charles Galloway.
SUSPECT IN TEXAS CORPORAL’S SHOOTING DEATH NABBED IN MEXICO
“Rosales previously illegally entered the U.S. on an unknown date and at unknown location without inspection or parole by U.S. immigration officials and later fled to Mexico after allegedly murdering a Harris County (Texas) Constables Office deputy,” an ICE spokesperson confirmed to Fox News.
U.S. immigration officials lodged a detainer with the Val Verde County Detention Center in Del Rio, Texas, for Rosales Wednesday shortly after he was returned to the U.S. from Mexico.
After the deadly traffic stop early Sunday, Rosales’ common-law wife and her brother were arrested in Houston and charged with tampering with evidence. ICE confirmed both were not U.S. citizens.
“On Jan. 25, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Houston Field Office lodged immigration detainers with the Harris County (Texas) Sheriff’s Office on Henri Mauricio Pereira Marquez, a 42-year-old noncitizen from Mexico, and Reina Azucena Pereira Marquez, a 40-year-old noncitizen from El Salvador, after they were both arrested by the Houston Police Department (HPD) for allegedly tampering or fabricating physical evidence with intent to impair,” ICE said.
Harris County Cpl. Charles Galloway was gunned down during a Jan. 23 traffic stop.
(Houston OEM)
Court documents obtained by Fox News Digital shed more light on the deadly traffic stop. Body-worn camera and in-car dash camera video showed Rosales allegedly shoot Galloway through the windshield.
At 12:30 a.m. Sunday, Galloway activated his emergency lights and siren in a fully marked patrol vehicle and conducted a traffic stop on a white Toyota Avalon with a Texas license plate. The driver continued at a slow pace until coming to a stop in the 9100 block of Beechnut Street in Houston.
Oscar Rosales, 51, is accused of shooting Harris County Cpl. Charles Galloway.
(Harris County DA)
As Galloway attempted to notify dispatch of the stop, body-worn camera and dash camera video show the driver got out of the vehicle and immediately pointed a rifle in the corporal’s direction.
The male suspect fired repeated gunshots in the direction of the corporal while he was still in the front seat of his patrol vehicle. Multiple gunshots shattered the front windshield, court documents say.
The gunman then got back into his car and left the scene. Houston police and fire responded to the shooting. Galloway was pronounced dead at the scene.
The medical examiner listed his cause of death as “a single gunshot wound to the left side of the face.”
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Court documents say the suspect’s vehicle was registered to an individual found to be Rosales’ common-law wife of 17 years. First interviewed by police, the woman said Rosales had left to go hunting with his friends and had taken two long guns out of a safe he had access to.
Later that Sunday afternoon, officers located the white Toyota Avalon in the parking lot of a Houston apartment complex and observed the common law wife and her brother removing items from the car. Her brother was also spotted wiping down the handles of the vehicle, court documents allege.
Fox News’ Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.
