The Honduran Foreign Minister, Eduardo Enrique Reina, demanded that the gunman responsible for the shooting murder of five Hondurans be punished to the fullest extent of the law in San Jacinto, Texas, some 55 miles from Houston, United States.
“We demand that the full weight of the law be applied against him or those responsible for this crime,” Reina said on Twitter.
In a second message, the high-ranking Honduran official expressed his “condolences to the families of the victims of this terrible crime in San Jacinto, Texas, in which 5 people allegedly of Honduran nationality have died” and that “our consulate has been instructed contact the authorities and closely follow the case.”
According to the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office, the five Honduran nationals, including an 8-year-old boy, died Friday in a shooting at a home.
The shooter, a Mexican national, was on the run and may be armed with an AR-15 assault rifle, a weapon used in many shootings in recent years, San Jacinto Sheriff Greg Capers said. at a press conference hours after the event, which has caused much consternation in Honduras.
Capers explained that the victims were shot in the neck and head, as if it were an “execution.”
The suspect was identified as Francisco Oropeza, 39, and charged with five counts of murder, Capers told The Washington Post.
According to Capers, the suspect was known in the neighborhood because he liked to shoot in the garden of his house with an AR-15 rifle.
The suspect broke into his neighbors’ home after they asked him to stop shooting in the yard with his rifle because it was too late and a baby was trying to sleep, Capers said.
Inside the house there were ten people. Of the five deceased, three were women, one was a man and the last was an 8-year-old boy, she explained.
More than a million Hondurans live in the United States, including residents and undocumented immigrants, who send family remittances every year, which in 2022 exceeded 8 billion dollars, according to official sources.
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