Police are searching for a gunman believed to have killed five Hondurans, including an eight-year-old child, at a home in Texas, a local sheriff said on April 29.
Investigators believe the gunman fired a gun in a neighboring yard when the victims asked him to stop, while they were trying to put the baby to sleep, media in the United States of America (USA) reported.
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Sheriff Greg Capers of San Jacinto County, which is north of Houston, described the horrifying scene when authorities went to the scene after receiving a "disturbance" call around 23:30 p.m. Friday.
The victims, aged eight to 40, were from the front door to an inner bedroom, where two of them, both women, were found lying over two children who had survived the massacre.
"In my opinion, they were actually trying to take care of the babies and keep them alive," Capers told Houston ABC station KTRK.
All the victims were shot "almost execution style, basically in the head," he added.
More people were found "in critical condition from multiple gunshot wounds," the sheriff's office said in a Facebook post. Three were hospitalized.
The suspect "was drinking and said, 'I'll do whatever I want in my backyard,'" the sheriff told KTRK.
"All the victims are from Honduras," Capers told reporters, adding that there were ten people in the house at the time.
Authorities announced that an arrest warrant has been issued for 39-year-old Francisco Oropez, charging him with five counts of murder.
"He (the suspect) is on the run in the Sam Houston National Forest here in San Jacinto County. We're tracking him with dogs and people on horseback and drones in the air," Capers said.
There have been more than 170 mass shootings in the US this year in which four or more people were injured or killed, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
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