Washington (EFE) of the sheriff of that Texas county.
The shooter, a Mexican national, fled and may be armed with an AR-15 assault rifle.
A weapon used in many of the shootings in recent years, San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said at a news conference.
Capers explained that the victims were shot in the neck and head, as if it were an “execution.”
Texas shooting suspect
The suspect, identified as Francisco Oropeza, 39, was charged with five counts of murder, Capers told The Washington Post.
Oropeza was known in the neighborhood because he liked to shoot in his backyard with an AR-15 rifle, Capers said.
As Capers explained, the suspect broke into his neighbors’ home after they asked him to stop shooting in the garden with his rifle because it was too late and a baby was trying to sleep.
Inside the house there were ten people. Of the five deceased, three were women, one was a man and the last was an eight-year-old boy, she explained.
When they arrived at the house, the agents found the adults already dead, while the minor was taken by helicopter to a hospital, where he died.
Three other children were taken to the hospital, covered in blood, but are not injured, Capers told The Washington Post.
Two women protected the children with their bodies
When the police arrived, they saw how two of the deceased women were in the bedroom of the house and their bodies were on top of two of the children who survived, in an apparent attempt to protect them from the bullets, Capers explained in that appearance before the press. .
Local authorities are offering a $5 million reward for anyone with information leading to the arrest of the shooter.
The Sheriff’s Office is in possession of the suspect’s consular card and video of him walking to his neighbors’ house to shoot them.
Capers told NPR radio that officers are looking for the shooter “every minute of every hour” and hope to find him soon.
According to CNN, the suspect is about 20 kilometers from where the event occurred, in a wooded area, and the Police have him surrounded.
174 mass shootings in the United States in 2023
Agents knew something was up when they received a tip Friday night.
They immediately went to the house, but, while on their way, the county communications center began receiving multiple calls from the 911 emergency number that a shooting was taking place where the police officers were going.
When officers arrived at the home, the shooting had already occurred and the suspect had fled.
According to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a nonprofit project that tracks gun violence in the United States, so far in 2023 there have been 174 mass shootings.
GVA defines a mass shooting as one with four victims, dead or injured, not including the perpetrator if he has died or suffered injuries.