Police in Garland (a suburb of Dallas, Texas) are looking for Abel Elias Acosta, a 14-year-old Hispanic teenager accused of murdering three Latino minors and wounding another at a gas station.
Local authorities warn that the
young man is armed and dangerous.
He faces a murder charge, which is punishable by the death penalty.
His father, Richard Acosta, 33, turned himself in to police on Monday and is also charged with capital murder for allegedly being
the driver who facilitated the getaway after the shooting,
police said in a statement.
He's being held on a million dollar bail.
A juvenile court issued an order for Acosta Jr. to be detained, police added, and authorized the release of his name.
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The Prosecutor's Office will determine if the adolescent is accused as a minor or as an adult, Lieutenant Pedro Barineau explained to the news agency The Associated Press, which does not usually give the names of young people suspected of having committed a crime, but this time it It does because the authorities indicated that it
represents a threat to public safety.
Police released a photo taken from social media on Wednesday showing a boy, who they said is Acosta, holding a gun.
Abel Elias Acosta, 14, is a suspect in a triple homicide in the Texas Garland Police Department.
Garland police arrested another 14-year-old teenager on Monday, believing he was responsible for the shooting, and handed him over to his family the next day, Barineau said.
Although he is not the assailant, that boy, whose name has not been released by the police, remains a "person of interest" in the investigation, he added.
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Police described Acosta Jr. as a
light-skinned Hispanic teenager with dark hair and brown eyes,
who is approximately 5 feet 5 inches (1.64 meters) tall and weighs about 125 pounds (56 kilograms).
He was last seen wearing a baseball cap, dark athletic shorts, and a blue surgical mask.
He was not wearing a shirt, according to police.
"He shot more than 20 times"
The shooting was caught on surveillance video.
In the recording, a young man or shirtless man is seen with a gun crouching down at a gas station store.
After opening the door, he starts shooting from the entrance.
Police had previously said the attacker fired more than 20 times with a .40-caliber pistol before fleeing in the Dodge Ram truck allegedly driven by Richard Acosta, who, they said, also drove him to the gas station.
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The fatalities were identified as Xavier González, 14, Ivan Noyala, 16, and Rafael García, 17. The other injured young man, 15 years old and whose name was not disclosed, worked in the store and is stable in a hospital, according to police.
Investigators believe the shooting was a retaliatory attack on one or more people at the store, Barineau said.
“We want to know why [he did it].
We don't have an answer as to why.
We're trying to understand it, ”Garland Police Chief Jeff Bryan said Monday.
