The Club PUBlication 05/01/2023

​Quarrel over baby leads to five shot dead in Texas
Slaying is another act of retaliatory gun violence.
By JUSTINE McDANIEL, ANDREA SALCEDO and MARK BERMAN • Washington Post

At left a loved one was consoledas he arrived at the scene where five people were shot and killed Froday night.

A man killed five people, including an 8-year-old boy, with an AR-15-style weapon Friday night in an angry response to his neighbors' request that he stop shooting in his yard while their baby was trying to sleep, Texas authorities said Saturday.

Instead of heeding the request, the man allegedly took the gun, went to the neighbor's house, and killed half the people inside. He fled, sparking an overnight search around Cleveland, Texas, continuing Saturday night.

The mass killing of a family in their home was the latest act of retaliatory gun violence to traumatize an American community. The shooting renewed calls from gun control advocates for a federal ban on assault weapons, which have a unique ability to destroy the human body. It was at least the seventh incident this month in which an armed American shot people. Law enforcement officers went to the home after receiving a report of "harassment" around 11:30 p.m., Capers told reporters. They found the four adults dead and took the 8-year-old to the hospital.

The three surviving children also were taken to a hospital, Capers said, but they were not injured.

The victims had moved to Cleveland from Harris County. Cleveland is about 40 miles northeast of downtown Houston.

Capers said they lived in a "regular country neighborhood" known as Trails End; all victims were from Honduras.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had not publicly responded to the news of the shooting by late Saturday afternoon.

Balderas, who has lived in the neighborhood for three years, described the family as happy. They moved in about two years ago, she said. She said the children's father, an electrician, helped her around the house, and the family aided Balderas when her father died.

"They were a very happy family. Christian. They were kind," she said. "They would never say no to us. They were always helping us. ... They were always there."

Balderas said she stayed up until 5 a.m. in fear because the gunman had not been apprehended. "It hurts a lot because I did love the family a lot. I am now afraid to be at home."

This was the year's 19th U.S. shooting to kill at least four people, not including the shooter, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks U.S. shootings.

The killings drew calls from gun control advocates for a federal ban on AR-15-style weapons, whose sale is banned in a few states. Washington became the latest state on Wednesday when its Democratic governor signed a ban.

President Joe Biden urged Congress to pass a federal assault weapons ban after a shooter killed six people with an AR-15-style weapon at a Nashville school last month.

Republicans in Congress have dismissed the legislation.

After the shooting, Kris Brown, president of the Brady gun control organization, said AR-15s "have no place in civilian life."

"These weapons of war were designed to kill as many people as quickly as possible, which is why they are the weapon of choice for America's mass shooters — and why Congress must ban them immediately," Brown said.

Texas has some of the least restrictive gun laws in the country, according to the nonprofit Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which supports stricter regular, everyday interactions.
The family in Texas had lived in their neighborhood for about two years.

Their neighbor, Francisco Oropeza, 38, was charged with five counts of murder, San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said. Authorities said they believed he was about 2 miles from the area Saturday afternoon and were working to apprehend him, he said.

Ten people, all family members, were in the home during the shooting. Five survived, including three children.

The Sheriff's Office said that three women and a man were killed, along with an 8-year-old boy who died later at a hospital.

Two of the women killed were found lying on top of the surviving young children in a bedroom, "trying to protect them," Capers said by phone from the scene.

All five victims were shot in the head, Capers said. "It's horrific. No one should ever have to look at this scene, the blood, the trauma that went on in that house."

Authorities initially searched for Oropeza in a wooded area near the neighborhood.

Later, the FBI said the suspect could be within a 10- to 20-square-mile radius.

Oropeza frequently shot his AR-15-style weapon in his yard, Capers said and was doing so Friday when his neighbors asked him to stop about 11 p.m. He allegedly became angry after they said their baby was trying to sleep and, after the conversation, went to their home. Authorities say video footage of Oropeza walking to the victims' front door before entering.

"The neighbors walked over and said ... 'Hey man, can you not do that? We've got an infant in here trying to sleep," Capers said. "They went back in their house, and then we have a video of him walking up their driveway with his AR-15."

Vianey Balderas, who lives across the street, said she first heard gunshots that night when a few people were outside.

About 20 minutes later, Balderas heard about five more gunshots, then another 10. "When I heard those gunshots, I didn't think anything of it because, in this neighborhood, everyone has guns. So every weekend you hear gunshots," she said in an interview in Spanish.

"People shoot in their backyards after they drink alcohol, men take out guns at house parties and shoot the ground."

Minutes later, Balderas, 27, heard a truck pulling away. She then saw one of her neighbors — the children's father, she said — outside, begging someone to call an ambulance.

She said the family and Oropeza had quarreled before.

Arms Laws
Texas gun rights advocates, meanwhile, said the shooting did not highlight any problems with the state's firearm-friendly policies.

"It's a tragedy, but we need to get away from blaming guns, which only answers the question of how and start asking the question why these shootings take place, why people feel the need to settle differences with violence and murder," said C.J. Grisham, legal and policy director for Texas Gun Rights, a Second Amendment advocacy group.

Grisham said the gunman's AR-15-style gun was "meaningless" because "he could have killed those people just as easily with a handgun."

The killings add to a growing list of recent shootings by armed Americans who have fired in response to what could have been regular, everyday interactions.

This month, an Illinois man was fatally shot by a neighbor angry about his leaf blower; a 20-year-old woman was shot and killed by a New York homeowner after accidentally pulling into the wrong driveway; a neighbor in North Carolina shot a 6-year-old and her father after the child's basketball rolled into his yard.
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