Five dead in Texas shooting, armed suspect on the loose

Five people including an 8-year-old child were killed in a shooting at a home in Cleveland, Texas, ABC News reported on Saturday, citing local police and authorities.

The shooting took place late Friday and the police were still looking for the suspect, the report added.

Officials from the San Jacinto County Sheriff's office received a call about harassment from Cleveland at around 11:31 p.m. local time but when they reached the scene they found several victims who had been shot, ABC reported.

The San Jacinto County Sheriff's office told the broadcaster that the suspect was a Mexican man who was intoxicated, armed and on the run.

The Cleveland Police Department did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for a comment. The San Jacinto County Sheriff's office could not immediately be reached for a comment.

Police did not disclose the identity of the victims or their possible relationship to the suspect, but said that they were all from Honduras, the ABC report said.

The shootings all took place in one home, with four victims declared dead at the scene and the fifth declared dead after being taken to the hospital, the report added.

The youngest of those killed was 8 years old with two female victims found on top of two surviving children, the report said, citing authorities.

The attack was the latest act of gun violence in what has been a record pace of mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year, some of which have Across the U.S. since Jan. 1, there have been at least 18 shootings that left four or more people dead, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today, in partnership with Northeastern University. The violence is sparked by a range of motives: murder-suicides and domestic violence; gang retaliation; school shootings and workplace vendettas.

Texas has confronted multiple mass shootings in recent years, including last year’s attack at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde; a racist attack at an El Paso Walmart in 2019; and a gunman opening fire at a church in the tiny town of Sutherland Springs in 2017.

Republican leaders in Texas have rejected calls for new firearm restrictions, including this year over the protests of several families who children were killed in Uvalde.