Texas shooting accused Francisco Oropeza 'armed and dangerous'

Texas governor faces backlash after describing victims as 'illegal immigrants'

Authorities in Texas are looking for Francisco Oropeza, 38, after five people, including a boy aged 9, were shot to death. Reuters

The hunt for a man who shot and fatally wounded five neighbours in Texas continued on Monday, with officers knocking on doors and a $50,000 reward promised by the governor of the US state.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott faced a backlash on social media after he described the victims as "illegal immigrants" in announcing the reward money.

Critics said the description politicised the massacre, dehumanised those killed and served no investigative purpose.

“We’ve since learned that at least one of the victims may have been in the United States legally,” Mr Abbott's spokeswoman, Renae Eze, 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.”

An FBI agent on the scene near Houston acknowledged they have little to go on in the widening manhunt for Francisco Oropeza, 38, who has been deported four times since 2009, but who neighbours say lived on their street for years before Friday night's shooting.

The shooting took place in the rural town of Cleveland, about 75km north-east of Houston, about midnight on Friday.

The search for Mr Oropeza near Houston had grown to involve more than 200 police officers from several jurisdictions by Sunday evening.

Local officials and the FBI also added to reward money, bringing the total to $80,000 for any information about Mr Oropeza's whereabouts.

He is considered armed and dangerous after fleeing the area on Friday night, most likely on foot, officials said.

San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said authorities had widened the search beyond the scene of the shooting, which he said occurred after a neighbour asked Mr Oropeza to stop firing off rounds in his garden late at night because a baby was trying to sleep.

A home in Cleveland, Texas, where a mass shooting occurred on Friday night. AP

At a Sunday vigil in Cleveland, Wilson Garcia, the father of the one-month-old, described the moment that the shooter walked up and began firing, killing Mr Garcia's wife at the front door of their home.

Mr Garcia's nine-year-old son Daniel Enrique Laso was also killed.

He said he and two other people had gone to “respectfully” ask Mr Oropeza to shoot his gun farther away from the house, which is on a street where residents say it is not uncommon for neighbours to fire off guns.

Mr Garcia said he walked away and called the police when Mr Oropeza refused.

'He won't fire at … a woman'

It was 10 to 20 minutes later when he said he saw a man loading his AR-style rifle while running towards the house.

“I told my wife ‘Get inside. This man has loaded his weapon’,” Mr Garcia said. “My wife told me to go inside because ‘He won’t fire at me. I’m a woman’.”

Authorities have said at least five other people who were in the house at the time were not injured.

During the early hours of the search, investigators found clothes and a phone while combing an area that includes dense layers of forest, but tracking dogs lost the scent, Mr Capers said.

Authorities said they identified Mr Oropeza as a suspect by an identity card issued by Mexican authorities to citizens who live outside the country, as well as the doorbell camera footage.

He said police had interviewed Mr Oropeza's wife many times.

Police recovered the AR-15-style rifle they said was used in the shootings.

Wilson Garcia holds a young girl during a vigil on Sunday for his son, Daniel Enrique Laso, who was killed alongside Mr Garcia's wife on Friday night. AP

By Sunday, police crime scene tape was removed from around the victims' home, where some people stopped by to leave flowers.

Veronica Pineda, 34, who lives across the road from Mr Oropeza's home, said authorities asked if they could search her property to see if he might be hiding there.

Ms Pineda said she was fearful that the gunman had not yet been captured.

“It is kind of scary,” she said. “You never know where he can be.”