NEW YORK POST
The man who lost his wife and 9-year-old son in a Texas mass shooting called 911 five times before at-large fugitive Francisco Oropeza allegedly stormed his house and shot five people to death.
Wilson Garcia recalled at a Sunday night vigil how he and two neighbors had “respectfully” asked Oropeza to stop firing his gun in his yard late at night because his infant child was trying to sleep inside his home in the rural town of Cleveland.
When the gunman refused to comply, Garcia walked away and called cops five times. Between 10 and 20 minutes later, Garcia said, he saw Oropeza load his AR-style rifle as he ran toward his family’s house.
“I told my wife, ‘Get inside. This man has loaded his weapon,’” Garcia said. “My wife told me to go inside because ‘He won’t fire at me. I’m a woman.’”
During the massacre as the adult victims tried to protect the children inside the home, Garcia said one of the women demanded he jump out a window to escape the carnage.
The grieving father said the victim told him he needed to survive “because my children were without a mother and one of their parents had to stay alive to take care of them.”
Garcia said that even though the gunman tried shooting him, with bullets flying everywhere, he was somehow able to avoid getting hit.
Garcia’s wife, Sonia Guzman, 25, was the first person to be slain in the rampage.
His son Daniel Enrique Laso, 9, was also killed along with Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21, Julisa Molina Rivera, 31, and Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18, police said. All of the victims were believed to be from Honduras, and they were all shot above the neck, according to officials.
Three other children in the home were found covered in blood but were uninjured.
San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said police had responded as quickly as possible, but noted he had three officers patrolling 700 square miles at the time.
By Monday, some 200 officers from different jurisdictions were searching for Oropeza, 38, but the FBI special agent in charge said the manhunt was not gaining traction.
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