A survivor of the mass shooting in Texas on Friday said they called police five times before his neighbor opened fire in their home killing five people including his wife and son.
Wilson Garcia said that he and two others went over to Francisco Oropesa’s house to “respectfully” ask that he shoot his gun farther away from the home because his 1-month-old baby was trying to sleep, according to the Associated Press.
“He told us he was on his property, and he could do what he wanted,” Garcia told AP on Sunday after a vigil in Cleveland, Texas.
Oropesa continued shooting and Garcia called the police. He said his family called the police a total of five times and each time they were told by the dispatcher that help was on the way.
About 10 to 20 minutes after he came back from Oropesa’s house, Garcia said he say the suspect running toward him and reloading his AR-15 style rifle.
“I told my wife, ‘Get inside. This man has loaded his weapon,'” Garcia recalled to the AP. “My wife told me to go inside because ‘he won’t fire at me, I’m a woman.'”
Garcia’s wife, Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25, was at the front door, and the first to die, according to AP.
“I never thought that he would shoot. Then he went room to room, looking for people,” Garcia said.
Garcia’s 9-year-old son, Daniel Enrique Laso was also killed in the attack along with Diana Velázquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31, and José Jonathan Cásarez, 18.
The two women died while protecting Garcia’s baby and 2-year-old daughter. Before they were killed Garcia said one of the women told him to jump out a window “because my children were without a mother and one of their parents had to stay alive to take care of them.”
He said Oropesa shot at him multiple times but missed. “He couldn’t catch up to me,” Garcia said. “The bullets were hitting everywhere.”
San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said at a press conference that the victims were all “shot from the neck up almost execution-style, basically in the head.”
“I am trying to be strong for my children,” Garcia said, crying. “My daughter sort of understands. It is very difficult when she begins to ask for mama and for her (older) brother.”
Oropesa is still on the run after the massacre. State and local authorities along with the FBI have offered a combined reward of $80,000 for information leading to his arrest.
