Texas man suspected of fatally shooting five people could be anywhere, sheriff says
CLEVELAND, Texas — The search for a Texas man who allegedly shot his neighbors after they asked him to stop firing rounds in his yard stretched into a second day Sunday, with authorities saying the man could be anywhere by now.
Francisco Oropeza, 38, remained at large more than 18 hours after the shooting that left five people dead, including an 8-year-old boy. San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said Saturday evening that authorities had widened the search to as far as 20 miles from the scene of the shooting.
Investigators found clothes and a phone while combing a rural area that includes dense layers of forest, but tracking dogs lost the scent, Capers said.
Oropeza likely is still carrying the AR-15 he is thought to have used in the shootings, the sheriff said.
“He could be anywhere now,” Capers said.
The attack happened near the town of Cleveland, north of Houston, on a street where some residents say neighbors often unwind by firing off guns.
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Capers said the victims were between the ages of 8 and 31 years old and that all were believed to be from Honduras. All were shot “from the neck up,” he said.
The attack was the latest in what has been a record pace of mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year, some of which have also involved semiautomatic rifles.
The mass killings have played out in a variety of places — a Nashville school, a Kentucky bank, a Southern California dance hall, and now a rural Texas neighborhood inside a single-story home.
Capers said that there were 10 people in the house — some of whom had just moved there earlier in the week — but that no one else was injured. He said the bodies of two women were found lying across two children in an apparent attempt to shield them.
FBI spokesperson Christina Garza said investigators do not believe all of those living at the home were members of a single family. 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.
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The killings happened after family members walked up to the fence and asked the neighbor to stop shooting rounds, Capers said. The man told them that it was his property, according to Capers, and one person in the house got a video of him walking up to their front door with the rifle.
The shooting took place on a rural pothole-riddled street where single-story homes sit on wide one-acre lots and are surrounded by a thick canopy of trees. A horse could be seen behind the victims’ home, while a dog and chickens wandered in the front yard of Oropeza’s house.
Rene Arevalo Sr., who lives a few houses down, said he heard gunshots around midnight but didn’t think anything of it.
“It’s a normal thing people do around here, especially on Fridays after work,” Arevalo said. “They get home and start drinking in their backyards and shooting out there.”
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Capers said his deputies had been to Oropeza’s home at least once before and spoken with him about “shooting his gun in the yard.” It was not immediately clear whether any action was taken at the time.
Capers said the new arrivals in the home had moved from Houston earlier in the week.
Across the U.S. since Jan. 1, there have been at least 18 shootings that left four or more people dead, according to a database maintained by the Associated Press and USA Today, in partnership with Northeastern University. The violence has been sparked by a range of motives: murder-suicides and domestic violence; gang retaliation; school shootings and workplace vendettas.
Texas has endured multiple mass shootings in recent years, including last year’s attack at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde; a racist attack at an El Paso Walmart in 2019; and a gunman opening fire at a church in the town of Sutherland Springs in 2017.
Republican leaders in Texas have rejected calls for new firearm restrictions, including this year over the protests of several families whose children were killed in Uvalde. Instead, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and the GOP-led state Legislature have loosened gun laws in recent years.
A few months ago, Arevalo said Oropeza threatened to kill his pit bull after it got loose in the neighborhood and Oropeza chased the dog in his truck.
“I tell my wife all the time, ‘Stay away from the neighbors. Don’t argue with them. You never know how they’re going to react,’” Arevalo said. “I tell her that because Texas is a state where you don’t know who has a gun and who is going to react that way.”
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