5 dead in shooting, including a child: suspected shooter caught after days of manhunt
Houston - The suspected gunman wanted after the deaths of five people in the US state of Texas has been captured after several days on the run.
The Mexican man suspected of the crime was arrested in Montgomery County on Tuesday evening (local time), according to the local sheriff's office.
Several hundred police officers, mounted patrols and sniffer dogs were involved in the four-day manhunt for the man in the area surrounding the metropolis of Houston.
The suspected perpetrator shot several neighbors in a house in the small town of Cleveland late on Friday evening. They had previously asked him to stop shooting in his front yard so that a baby could sleep.
The drunken man refused the request - instead, he showed up at the neighbors' front door with a gun and carried out a veritable massacre. According to the police, he killed his victims "almost in the style of an execution" - with shots to the head or neck from close range.
Fatalities had only moved in a few days earlier
Among the victims were a child and two women who had apparently shielded two children from the shots with their bodies.
According to the police, a total of ten people were in the house, five of whom survived unharmed. The five victims were from Honduras and, according to media reports, had only moved from Houston to Cleveland, around 70 kilometers away, a few days earlier.
The gun laws in the conservative state of Texas are considered to be particularly lax, even by American standards. The extremely powerful gun lobby in the USA insists on the right to self-arm despite countless acts of bloodshed and knows that the Republicans in Congress, in particular, are on its side:
A substantial tightening of gun laws in the USA has long been blocked by them.
Every year, tens of thousands of people die in the United States as a result of gun violence.