5 shot dead in Texas after noise complaint

CLEVELAND, Texas — A man shot dead five neighbors including an 8-year-old boy after some of them had asked him to stop shooting a semi-automatic rifle in his front yard in Cleveland, Texas, because it was keeping their baby awake, police said on Saturday.

The suspect, identified as 38-year-old Francisco Oropeza, remained at large and authorities warned that he might still be armed. The attack happened just before midnight on Friday near the town of Cleveland, north of Houston, on a street where some residents said it is not uncommon to hear neighbors unwind by firing off guns.

San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said Oropeza used an AR-style rifle, and as the search for him dragged into Saturday evening, authorities had widened their efforts to as far as 16 to 32 kilometers from the murder scene. He said Oropeza may still have a weapon, but believed that authorities have the rifle used in the shooting.

Capers said they found clothes and a phone while combing a rural area that includes dense layers of the forest, but tracking dogs had lost the scent.

Capers said there were 10 people in the house — some of whom had just moved there earlier in the week — but no one else was injured. He said two of the victims were found in a bedroom laying over two children in an apparent attempt to shield them.

A total of three children found covered in blood were taken to a hospital, but found to be uninjured, Capers said.

The Texas killings appeared to be the latest in a series of shootings spawned by normally banal interactions: a teenager mistakenly knocking on the wrong door, a cheerleader accidentally stepping into the wrong car, someone mistakenly driving into the wrong driveway, and a ball rolling into a neighbor's yard.

There have been more than 170 mass shootings — defined as four or more people wounded or killed — so far this year in the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

With more firearms than inhabitants, the US has the highest rate of gun deaths in any developed country — 49,000 in 2021, up from 45,000 the year before.

Agencies Via Xinhua