Local Texas authorities reported that the shooter who fatally shot five people of Honduran nationality, including an 8-year-old boy, “could be anywhere,” so the search perimeter has been expanded.
“Now he could be anywhere,” San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers, who has led the response to the tragic event, said at a press conference.
According to Capers, the search perimeter has gone from about 7-9 square miles to 15-31 square miles.
Initially, officials thought they had the suspect cornered in a wooded area not far from where the shooting occurred; but, after an intense search, they found abandoned the phone with which they had tracked him down, as well as several items of clothing that he had gotten rid of.
The sheriff explained that Texas Department of Corrections dogs tracked the suspect for a while, but lost the trail when they reached a river.
The perpetrator of the shooting has been identified as Francisco Oropeza, 38, and a Mexican national. Local Texas officials have offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his arrest.
Several federal government agencies, including the FBI, are collaborating in the investigation of the shooting, which occurred in the town of Cleveland, in San Jacinto County, about 50 miles from Houston.
“Armed and dangerous”
At the press conference, the agent in charge of the FBI office in Houston, James Smith, warned that the perpetrator of the shooting is considered “armed and dangerous” and called on the neighbors to take precautions and be alert, so that they can notify the authorities if they see him.
However, he asked the neighbors not to “take the law into their own hands” and to notify the police if they see him.
Capers explained that the perpetrator of the shooting could be armed, but indicated that the AR-15 assault rifle with which he perpetrated the shooting is in the hands of the authorities.
Oropeza was known in the neighborhood because he liked to shoot in the garden of his house with an AR-15 rifle and the police had already had to intervene on a couple of occasions, Capers explained.
On Friday night, the shooter was in the garden of his house shooting with his AR-15 rifle when one of his neighbors approached him and asked him to stop shooting because it was already too late and a baby was trying to sleep.
The suspect responded by breaking into his neighbors’ home to shoot them in the neck and head, as if it were an “execution,” Capers described in another news conference early Saturday.
Identified victims
This afternoon, Capers offered the names and ages of the people who lost their lives after receiving authorization from the families.
Specifically, the names of the deceased are Daniel Enrique Lazo, 8 years old; Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25 years old; Diana Velásquez Alvarado, 21 years old; Obdulia Molina Rivera, 31 years old; and José Jonathan Cáceres, 18 years old.
According to the sheriff, when the agents arrived at the house, they found the adults already dead, while the minor was taken by helicopter to a hospital, where he died.
The Police saw how two of the deceased women were in the bedroom of the house and their bodies were on top of two of the children who survived, in an apparent attempt to protect them from the bullets.
The ten people inside the house lived together, although they were not part of the same family.
With information from EFE
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