Global Courant 2023-05-01 04:42:42
A man suspected of using an AR-15 rifle to kill five execution-style neighbors continued to escape an army of law enforcement officers hunting him outside of Houston over the weekend.
Authorities said Sunday afternoon Francisco Oropesa, 38, appeared to have slipped past a 2-mile dragnet of more than 150 law enforcement officers in Cleveland, Texas, about 43 miles north of Houston, on Saturday.
On Sunday, they said, more than 250 officers continued the search.
Oropesa is suspected of shooting at neighbors late Friday after one of them complained that shots coming from his adjoining property kept a baby from sleeping, officials said.
Born in Mexico, Oropesa has no significant criminal record and his immigration status was not entirely clear on Sunday. Authorities say he may have been drunk before the attack.
Shawn Crawford, a neighbor who said he knows Oropesa and the victims, described the community as “family oriented” and the suspect as a “family man”.
“He’s always working, training his horse,” Crawford said. “Never have I seen a fight, argument, raise his voice, anything.”
Complaints about past gunfire, he said, were easy to answer, since Oropesa would be moving to another side of his property. San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers acknowledged previous reports of gunfire, which he said may not have been illegal depending on the size of his property.
The characterization of an impartial family man seems to make the suspect’s disappearance all the more unexpected. Law enforcement officials said they had contact with Oropesa’s wife but had no leads beyond his apparent contact with someone on Saturday afternoon.
“We’re running into dead ends,” James Smith, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Houston office, said at a news conference Sunday afternoon. “Right now we have zero leads.”
On Saturday, searchers found the suspect’s cell phone and some of his clothing before sniffer dogs lost his trail, authorities said.
Capers, the sheriff, said authorities seized the shotgun used in the attack, but the suspect may still be armed with a gun.
Court records for a 2012 drunk driving conviction, stemming from a 2009 Texas Highway Patrol arrest, match the suspect’s name and date of birth and suggest he may have been familiar with the area for more than a decade.
On Sunday, Capers pledged to give his full attention to the search as neighboring agencies, the Texas Public Safety Department, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined the hunt.
“It’s my number 1 priority to find him,” Capers said.
Sunday afternoon there was a vigil for the youngest victim, 8-year-old Daniel Enrique Laso. The others killed in the attack were identified as Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25; Diana Velázquez Alvarado, 21; Julia Molina Rivera, 31; and Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18.
They were all thought to be from Honduras.
“My heart is with this 8-year-old boy,” Capers said on Sunday. “I don’t care if he was here legally. I don’t care if he was here illegally. He was in my county. Five people died in my county, and that’s where my heart is – in my county for our people to protect.” to the best of our ability.”
The reward money for information leading to the suspect’s capture was increased by a pledge of $25,000 from the FBI, totaling $80,000.
As police went door-to-door searching for security video or tips that could lead to the suspect, the FBI retracted a photo that had been released and released several new images, including one of a tattoo on the suspect’s forearm, to help the public recognize and report him if anyone sees him.
“We took swift action to remove that photo,” he said. “Now we have 100% confidence in it the right picture outside.”
Authorities previously said Oropesa marched to his neighbors’ residence with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and aimed determinedly at his victims.
Capers pushed back at a press conference on Saturday when a reporter suggested victims may have been sprayed with gunfire, and in a subsequent interview he elaborated:
“They were all shot in the head execution-style,” he said.
He described the shooter’s actions, as they were reportedly known to investigators, before midnight Friday.
“This man takes it upon himself to walk out of his residence with a loaded AR-15, walk up the street, walk down the street, walk into that man’s driveway, walk into that man’s house and start shooting.”
The four adult victims had died on the spot; the 8-year-old died in a hospital, authorities said. Three other children may have been saved by two women in the home who draped their bodies over them, Capers said.
In total, he said, he believed 15 shots were fired.
