“Man arrested for quintuple murder in Texas after neighbor dispute over shooting practice”

He was found hiding in a closet, under some clothes. The American authorities announced, Tuesday, May 2, the arrest in Texas of the man suspected of having shot and killed five people, including a 9-year-old child. These people had simply complained about the sound of his assault rifle.

Francisco Oropesa, who entered the country illegally, is accused of having opened fire during the night from Friday to Saturday inside a house in Cleveland, near Houston, killing five people, all from Honduras and aged 9 to 31. More than 250 local and federal agents had been looking for the suspect in this southern state for several days where firearms abound.

Banal interactions that degenerate

According to local authorities, the suspect was practicing shooting in his garden when neighbors asked him to stop the noise so that a baby could sleep. In reaction, he entered their house and shot “like for an execution, basically in the head” of several residents, the San Jacinto County Sheriff said.

This news item aroused strong emotion in the United States and in Honduras, a small country in Central America. It is part of a recent tragic succession of banal interactions that degenerated into bloodbaths. In April, a 20-year-old woman was shot and killed in New York state after she accidentally drove into the driveway of a private home. The same month, in Texas, a man opened fire on cheerleaders after one of them tried to open the door of his car, which she had mistaken for his own vehicle. A black teenager was seriously injured by gunshot after being in the wrong house in Missouri.