Fugitive accused of killing 5 in Texas was deported 4 times, officials say
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Francisco Oropesa was shooting a gun in his yard in Cleveland when a neighbour approached him to stop so that his baby could sleep.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
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CLEVELAND, Texas - Immigration officials revealed on Monday that a fugitive Mexican national accused of killing five neighbours over the weekend had previously been deported four times.
Even as he remained at large and the target of an extensive search, the case seemed sure to reignite bitter national debates over immigration policy and gun control.
It began on Friday evening with a type of noise complaint not uncommon in rural Texas.
The athorities said the suspect, Francisco Oropesa, was shooting a gun in his yard in Cleveland, Texas, when a neighbour, Mr Wilson Garcia, approached him and asked him to stop so that his baby could sleep.
Oropesa, 38, responded by getting an AR-15 rifle from his house and walking over to Mr Garcia’s home at about 11.30pm, where he killed Mr Garcia’s eight-year-old son, wife and three other people, the authorities said.
Two women who were killed were shielding a six-week-old boy and a three-year-old girl. The gunman then chased Mr Garcia, who escaped through a window and ran.
An official with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Monday that an immigration judge had ordered the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deport Oropesa to Mexico in March 2009.
He illegally returned to the US, and he was caught and removed by ICE in September 2009, January 2012 and July 2016, the official said.
It was unclear what had led to his initial deportation order, but the immigration official said Oropesa was later convicted in Montgomery County, Texas, for driving while intoxicated in January 2012 and sentenced to jail.
Even while the Federal Bureau of Investigation and several Texas law enforcement agencies sought the fugitive, attention turned quickly to the immigration status of the suspect and his victims.
Governor Greg Abbott of Texas, a frequent critic of federal policy, said on Sunday that the suspect was in the country illegally, but on Monday walked back part of his initial comments that the victims were “five illegal immigrants”.
“We’ve since learnt that at least one of the victims may have been in the United States legally,” Ms Renae Eze, a spokesman for the governor, said in a statement on Monday.
“We regret if the information was incorrect and detracted from the important goal of finding and arresting the criminal.” NYTIMES
