Cleveland, Texas: Police in Texas have offered $ 80,000 as reward for help finding a man who shot dead five neighbours including an 8-year-old boy in Cleveland, Reuters reported.
Francisco Oropesa, 38, allegedly opened fire on neighours after he was asked to stop shooting an AR-15-style rifle as it kept their baby awake on late Friday.
More than 200 police personnel were going from door-to-door in the neighourhood looking for the suspect or any tips, according to San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers.
James Smith, who is the FBI Houston Special Agent in Charge, told reporters that police have ‘zero leads’ as of now.
The victims, living in the house though not members of a single family, include Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25; Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31; Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18; and Daniel Enrique Laso, 8, according to Reuters.
At 11.31 p.m officials got a call from a home in Cleveland about 72 km north of Houston on Friday.
The suspect came out of his house on Friday night and began shooting off rounds in his yard when some of victims came out asking him to stop shooting.
One man walked over to the fence and told the suspect that they were trying to keep the baby asleep in their house, according to Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers.
Afterwards, the suspect and his neighbours went back to their respective houses but the suspect Oropesa ‘topped off his magazine and walked down his driveway’.
Then the suspect walked down the street and entered into the house where the people lived and began shooting, according to Capers.
Capers further added that most of the victims in the latest gunfire tragedy had been shot in the head like in ‘execution style’.
Police had reportedly arrived a couple of times previously following complaints about gunfire noise from his yard.
Meanwhile, the nonprofit group Gun Violence Archive said that so far 176 people have been killed in 2023, the most as of now since 2016.