Wilson Garcia.Photo: AP Photo/David J. Phillip
Two survivors of themassacre that left five people dead in rural Texasare speaking out about how things could have gone differently if police had quickly responded to their 911 calls.
Speaking withNBC News, Wilson Garcia, who lost his wife, young son and three family friends in the deadly shooting, said he and his wife called 911 as soon as they learned that an armed neighbor threatened them after Garcia “respectfully” asked him to shoot elsewhere.
Shortly after, the allegedly drunk neighbor entered Garcia’s Cleveland, Texas, home with an AR-15 rifle and fatally shot five people “execution style,” authorities said. The victims were: 9-year-old Daniel Enrique Laso, Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25, Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21, Julisa Molina Rivera, 31, and Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18,PEOPLEpreviously reported.
However, it wasn’t until 30 minutes after the initial call that deputies from the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office arrived on the scene, according to the outlet. By that time, his loved ones were already dead and the gunman had escaped.
“It was half an hour after we first started calling,” Guzman told NBC News. “I wonder if they had come in those 30 minutes this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe my family would still be alive.”
The suspect, 38-year-old Francisco Oropeza, remained at large Tuesday. There’s currently an $80,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.
The actual number of 911 calls is unclear, but San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers says police arrived as quickly as they could considering they only had three deputies covering 700 square miles, according to theAssociated Press.
San Jacinto County District Attorney Todd Dillon noted, per NBC News, that the initial call was received as a harassment complaint, which was not a priority at first. But when the shooting calls came in, they switched gears.
“They swarmed to get there as soon as the information was put out,” Dillon told NBC News. “It just took them a while to get there because they were not staged to get there quickly.”
Police say they have “zero leads” on where the suspect went after the shooting but believe he fled the area on foot.
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“We have over 200 law enforcement personnel from federal, state, and local agencies trying to bring this suspect into custody,” FBI special agent James Smith said at a press conference over the weekend. “We are asking everyone for your help until we can bring this suspect, this monster, to justice.”
source: people.com
