(Reuters) – A Texas man accused of killing five neighbours after being asked to stop shooting his assault-style rifle because of the noise had been deported from the U.S. four times since 2009, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said yesterday.
The suspect in the shooting in the rural community of Cleveland, Texas, Francisco Oropesa, 38, is a Mexican who was deported in March 2009 after being ordered removed by an immigration judge, ICE said in a statement. He was apprehended and deported again in September 2009, January 2012 and July 2016, ICE said.
Oropesa was convicted of driving while intoxicated in January 2012 in Montgomery County, Texas, and sentenced to jail, ICE added.
Law enforcement had not updated the media on the progress of their search by late afternoon Monday, but the trail had apparently gone cold on Sunday.
“We do not know where he is,” FBI Houston Special Agent in Charge James Smith told reporters on Sunday. “Right now, we have zero leads.”
Officers were going door-to-door in a search that involved more than 250 law enforcement officers from a dozen agencies, said San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers. Officials are offering an $80,000 reward for information that will lead to the suspect’s apprehension. Read full story
Capers said on Saturday that the suspect stepped out of his house on Friday night and started shooting off rounds with an AR-15-style rifle in his yard.
That was when neighbors in Cleveland, about 45 miles (72 km) north of Houston, asked him to stop because the firing was keeping a baby awake.
