The US federal police FBI is looking for a man who is said to have shot five neighbors in a small Texas town. The FBI considers the suspect to be “armed and dangerous,” Agent James Smith told US broadcaster CNN on Saturday (local time). According to San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers, the 38-year-old could be “anywhere” now, but probably no longer near the crime scene.
The perpetrator shoots around in the front yard beforehand
The man – according to the sheriff a Mexican – shot people in an apartment building with a rifle late Friday evening. According to the sheriff, the neighbors had previously asked him to stop shooting in his front yard because a baby was trying to sleep. The drunk man refused the request. Then, as pictures from the entrance camera showed, he appeared in front of the front door with a gun.
The alarmed police found four dead when they arrived at the house, and another person later succumbed to gunshot wounds in the hospital. According to Capers, an eight-year-old child was among the victims.
According to the Houston Chronicle newspaper, more than 100 officers combed the densely wooded area around Cleveland, not far from Houston, with dogs and some on horseback on Saturday. His mobile phone was found during the follow-up, as was clothing left behind, Capers told CNN. Deployed sniffer dogs would have lost his track.
According to the sheriff, the people were killed “almost execution-style” — shots in the head or neck at close range. Among the dead were two women who had apparently shielded two children from the shots with their bodies. According to the sheriff, a total of ten people were in the house, five of whom survived the bloody deed unharmed.
Honduras’ Foreign Minister expresses his condolences
According to Capers, the five fatalities are people from Honduras. According to the broadcaster CNN, they should have moved from the Texan metropolis Houston to Cleveland only days before. The Foreign Minister of the Central American country, Enrique Reina, expressed his condolences to the families of the victims on Twitter. “We demand that the full weight of the law be used against those responsible for this crime,” he wrote on Saturday.
According to Capers, there had previously been complaints that the Mexican was shooting around in the front yard with his rifle. On the evening of the crime, several calls were received by the police about sustained shots. According to CNN, the officers seized weapons in the suspect’s house, including the semi-automatic weapon allegedly used for the killings, according to the “Houston Chronicle”. It is possible that the perpetrator took other firearms from his possession when he fled.
Gun Violence in the USA: Not an Isolated Case
The laws in the US state of Texas regarding gun ownership are considered particularly lax. The lobby for the right to bear arms for one’s own protection is powerful. In May 2022, an 18-year-old shot dead 19 children and two teachers with an assault rifle in an elementary school in the small Texas town of Uvalde.
