Global Courant 2023-04-29 17:24:32
Five people are dead after being shot in a home by a suspect armed with an AR-15 rifle, police say.
The incident occurred at approximately 11:31 p.m. local time when San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office officials received a call about harassment in Cleveland, Texas, a small town about 55 miles north of Houston.
But when authorities arrived at the scene, they found several victims shot on the premises, police said.
The youngest victim of the shooting was 8 years old and two female victims were discovered in the bedroom, in addition to two surviving children, authorities told ABC News.
The suspect is a Mexican man armed with an AR-15 style rifle and is intoxicated, authorities say. They are looking for a Hispanic man about six feet tall who was last seen wearing blue jeans with a black shirt and work boots and is described as having short black hair.
“The Mexican male test subject, he is known to shoot his 223 in his front yard, which is evident from the shell casings lying in the front yard,” the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office said.
When police arrived on the scene, there were at least ten people in the home and all of the victims were between the ages of eight and 40.
Local residents in the Cleveland, Texas area are being told to “stay indoors (and) stay away from the crime scene until the investigation is complete.
Police have not disclosed the identity, age or possible relationship to the suspect, but did confirm that the shootings all took place in one house, that the victims were all from Honduras and that four of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene and the other dead was declared after they were taken to hospital.
This is an active crime scene and investigation, but police said that while the suspect is on the run, they do not believe he is currently in the area.
Speaking to ABC News’ Houston station KTRK, Sheriff Greg Capers of the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office said all of the victims were shot from the neck down “almost execution style.”
“Everyone who was shot was shot from the neck down, almost execution style, basically in the head,” he said.
Capers said they have identified the shooter and believe he is about 10 to 12 miles from the crime scene, but have not yet been able to locate him.
“We’re getting closer to him every minute of every hour, but we know who he is,” Capers said. “He is from Mexico. The victims themselves came from Honduras.”
The gunman reportedly went to the home where the shooting took place after neighbors asked him to calm down because a baby was trying to sleep, Capers said.
“I understand the victims came to the fence and said, ‘Hey, could you shoot in the yard? We have a young baby trying to go to sleep,” and he had been drinking and he says, “I do what I want in my front yard,” Capers told KTRK.
The shooter was known to fire his AR-15 style rifle into his front yard. Capers said, and police found two other guns in the house during a search after the shooting. Capers also confirmed they are interviewing the shooter’s wife.
Capers also described how some of the victims appeared to protect their children. In the bedroom of the home, police found two dead bodies on top of unharmed victims covered in blood.
“In my opinion, they were actually trying to take care of the babies and keep them alive,” Capers said.
Veronica Pineda, a local resident, spoke to KTRK and said she has become accustomed to neighborhood neighbors firing guns.
“There’s always shooting, there’s always shooting,” she told KTRK. “There are always people calling the police and nothing is done about it.”
She said neighbors often fired guns on weekends and holidays, and the sound of gunfire was common at night.
“We were in bed and my kids – I have two babies – got scared, and we thought, ‘It’s normal for them to shoot all the time.'”
She said she didn’t know the shooter well, but would wave to him if he came by with his horses.
Peter Charalambous and Jessica Gorman of ABC News contributed to this report.
