Headline

38-year-old American Kills 8-yr-old Boy, 5 Others, Police Begin Manhunt

Published

2 years ago

April 29, 2023

A 38-year-old American male, Francisco Oropeza with an AR-15-style assault weapon has shot and killed five people yesterday, including an 8-year-old, authorities said Saturday.

The gunman fled the crime scene, prompting an ongoing manhunt, According to Washington Post.

Authorities charged Francisco Oropeza, 38, with five counts of murder and were searching for him Saturday morning, San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers told The Washington Post.

Washington Post reported that ten people were in the home during the shooting. Three women, a man and an 8-year-old boy were killed, a source said.

The suspect was the victim’s neighbour and went to their home Friday night after they asked him to stop shooting an AR-15-style rifle in his front yard because of the noise, Capers said.

Oropeza frequently shot the rifle in his yard, Capers said and allegedly became angry when the neighbours said their baby was trying to sleep around or after 11 p.m. Authorities saw video footage of Oropeza walking up to the victim’s front door before going inside.

“The neighbours walked over and said … ‘Hey man, can you not do that, we’ve got an infant in here trying to sleep’ or whatever,” Capers said. “They went back in their house and then we have a video of him walking up their driveway with his AR-15.”

Law enforcement officers responded to the Cleveland home after a report of “harassment” at about 11:30 p.m. Friday, Capers told reporters early Saturday morning.

The adults were declared dead at the scene, and the 8-year-old died at a hospital, according to the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office. The people in the house were family members, Capers said.

Three children survived the shooting. Two of the women who were killed were found lying on top of the young children in a bedroom, “trying to protect them,” Capers told The Post by phone from the scene.

“It’s horrific,” Capers said. “No one should ever have to look at this scene, the blood, the trauma that went on in that house.”

The children were taken to a hospital and were not injured, Capers said.

Cleveland is about 40 miles northeast of downtown Houston. All of the victims were from Honduras and the suspect was from Mexico, Capers said.

The victims had moved to Cleveland from Harris County, where Houston is located. They lived in a “regular country neighbourhood” known as Trails End, Capers said, estimating that their house was between 1,500 and 1,800 square feet.

The shooter fled after the killings but was believed to be about 2 miles away from the home Saturday morning, Capers said. Authorities issued a warrant for Oropeza’s arrest Saturday, the news release said.

“We’re searching for him,” Capers told KHOU. “We don’t believe him to be in the area.”

This killing makes it the 19th in the U.S.

The killings add to a growing list of recent shootings carried out by armed Americans who have shot people in response to what should have been normal, everyday interactions.

This month, an Illinois man was fatally shot by a neighbour angry about his leaf blower; a 20-year-old woman was shot and killed by a New York homeowner after accidentally pulling into the wrong driveway; a 6-year-old and her father were shot by a neighbour in North Carolina after the child’s basketball rolled into his yard.

Those violent confrontations followed the April 13 shooting of Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager who was picking up his siblings and was shot by a White man when he accidentally rang the doorbell of the wrong home.

Headline

UK Police Arrest Asylum Seeker Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed

Published

19 hours ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

The UK police on Sunday arrested an Ethiopian asylum seeker and convicted sex offender, whose crimes had sparked anti-immigration protests, after he was accidentally released from prison in an embarrassing blunder by British authorities.

London’s Metropolitan Police said officers arrested Hadush Kebatu in the north of the capital on Sunday morning, nearly 48 hours after he was mistakenly freed around 30 miles (48 kilometres) away.

Kebatu, 38, had served the first month of a one-year sentence for sexually assaulting a teenage girl and a woman, but was reportedly due to be deported when the Prison Service error occurred on Friday.

His high-profile case earlier this year in Epping, northeast of London, sparked demonstrations in various English towns and cities where asylum seekers were believed to be housed, as well as counter-protests.

Commander James Conway, who oversaw the manhunt for him, said “information from the public” led officers to the Finsbury Park neighbourhood of London, where he was found.

“He was detained by police but will be returned to the custody of the Prison Service,” he added.

Kebatu is now expected to be deported.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Friday he was “appalled” by the “totally unacceptable” mistake that saw him freed rather than sent to an immigration detention centre.

The Telegraph newspaper said he was wrongly categorised for release on licence and handed a £76 ($101) discharge grant.

Police had appealed Saturday for Kebatu to turn himself in, after reports emerged that he had appeared confused and reluctant to leave the prison in Chelmsford, eastern England.

A delivery driver described seeing Kebatu return several times in a “very confused” state, only to be turned away by staff and directed to the railway station.

The driver told Sky News he saw Kebatu outside the jail, asking, “Where am I going? What am I doing?”

“He was starting to get upset, he was getting stressed,” the driver said.

The father of Kebatu’s anonymous teenage victim told the broadcaster that “the justice system has let us down.”

Police arrested the asylum seeker in July after he repeatedly tried to kiss a 14-year-old girl and touch her legs, and made sexually explicit comments to her.

He also sexually assaulted an adult woman, placing a hand on her thigh, when she intervened to stop his interactions with the girl.

He was staying at the time at Epping’s Bell Hotel, where scores of other asylum seekers have been accommodated, and which became the target of repeated protests.

AFP

Headline

Madagascar Revokes Ousted President’s Nationality

Published

20 hours ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

Madagascar’s new government has stripped ousted president Andry Rajoelina of his Malagasy nationality in a decree published Friday, 10 days after he was removed in a military takeover.

According to AFP, the decree means that Rajoelina, who was impeached on October 14 after fleeing the island nation in the wake of weeks of protests, would not be able to contest future election.

The decree published in the official gazette said Rajoelina’s Malagasy nationality was revoked because he had acquired French nationality in 2014, local media reported, as photographs of the document were shared online.

French broadcaster RFI said it had confirmed the decree with the entourage of the new prime minister, Herintsalama Rajaonarivelo, who signed the order.

The decree cited laws stipulating that a Malagasy who voluntarily acquires a foreign nationality loses their Malagasy nationality.

Rajoelina’s French nationality caused a scandal when it was revealed ahead of the November 2023 elections, nearly 10 years after it was granted.

It triggered calls for him to be disqualified but he went on to win the contested polls, which were boycotted by opposition parties.

The 51-year-old politician fled Madagascar after army Colonel Michael Randrianirina said on October 11 his CAPSAT unit would refuse orders to put down the youth-led protest movement, which security forces had attempted to suppress with violence.

Rajoelina said later he was in hiding for his safety, but did not say where.

Randrianirina was sworn in as president on October 14, pledging elections within two years.

Headline

Kamala Harris Hints At Running For President Again

Published

20 hours ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

Former US vice president Kamala Harris said in a British television interview previewed in Saturday that she may “possibly” run again to be president.

Harris, who replaced Joe Biden as the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate but lost to Donald Trump, told the BBC that she had not yet decided whether to make another White House bid.

But the 61-year-old insisted she was “not done” in American politics and that her young grandnieces would see a female president in the Oval Office “in their lifetime, for sure”.

“I have lived my entire career a life of service, and it’s in my bones, and there are many ways to serve.

“I’ve not decided yet what I will do in the future, beyond what I am doing right now,” Harris told the British broadcaster in an interview set to air in full on Sunday.

The comments are the strongest hint yet that Harris could attempt to be the Democratic Party nominee for the 2028 election.

The interview follows the release of her memoir last month, in which she argued it had been “recklessness” to let Biden run for a second term as president.

She also accused his White House team of failing to support her while she was his deputy, and at times of actively hindering her.

AFP