Authorities in Texas were conducting a massive manhunt on Monday May 1 to find a gunman suspected of killing five people, including an 8-year-old child, who had simply complained about the sound of his assault rifle.
More than 200 local and federal police were looking for this suspect, a Mexican identified as Francisco Oropeza, in this state in the southern United States where firearms abound.
Considered armed and dangerous, he “
can be anywhere
”, warned during the weekend the sheriff Greg Capers, in charge of the investigation, during a press briefing.
Authorities have offered an $80,000 bounty for any information leading to the location of this “
monster
,” as FBI Special Agent Jams Smith called it.
The 38-year-old gunman is suspected of opening fire Friday night into Saturday inside a home in Cleveland, near Houston, killing five people, all from Honduras, aged 8 at 31 years old.
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According to local authorities, he was practicing shooting in his garden when neighbors asked him to stop the noise so that a baby could sleep.
In response, the suspect allegedly entered his neighbors' home and shot, "
execution-like, essentially in the head
" of several residents, Sheriff Capers said.
130 deaths per day
This news item aroused strong emotion in the United States and in Honduras, a small country in Central America where the young victims were from.
On Sunday, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott posted a tweet, condemned by his opponents, in which he called the victims "
illegal immigrants
".
This elected official, very critical of the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden on migration issues, has sparked other controversy in recent months by ferrying migrants who entered illegally to Democratic strongholds in the United States by bus.
The United States has more personal weapons than people, and they cause more than 130 deaths a day, more than half of which are suicides.