A manhunt is underway in Texas for a gunman whom police said opened fire early Sunday on a group of people eating and drinking on the patio of a bar in suburban Houston, killing one person and wounding five others.
The shooting occurred at the Alas Locas sports bar in Cleveland, about 45 miles northeast of Houston, according to the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office.
The shooting was captured on security video, which investigators were reviewing in hopes of identifying the suspect, authorities said.
Witnesses told investigators that prior to the shooting, the gunman was quietly sitting by himself drinking at the bar, according to Capt. David Myers of the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office.
Based on the number of shell casings collected at the scene by investigators, including Rangers from the Texas Department of Public Safety, Myers said the gunman fired at least 20 shots before fleeing the bar.
A motive for the shooting remains under investigation.
The shooting unfolded at around 2:30 a.m. local time, when police received multiple calls of shots fired at the bar, Myers said in an interview at the scene with ABC Houston station KTRK.
Myers said witnesses told investigators that the suspect arrived at the bar between midnight and 2 a.m. and ordered a beer but was “not really conversing with anyone for about an hour prior to the shooting.”
At some point, according to Myers, the suspect walked out of the bar and later reemerged on the bar’s outdoor patio, where he allegedly opened fire without warning with a .40 or .45-caliber handgun, shooting at patrons who were eating and drinking on the deck.
The shooter fled the bar and drove off in an unknown direction in a white full-size van with no side windows, authorities said.
One victim, who was at the bar with his wife, was critically injured and taken by medical helicopter to Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, according to officials.
Five other men and a women were shot in the incident, including two who were in critical condition, Myers said.
The incident marked the second mass shooting at a bar in the Houston metropolitan area this year.
On March 23, six people were shot, including four who were critically injured, at the Latinas Sports Bar in southwest Houston.
Two days after the shooting, the Houston Police Department arrested a 25-year-old Venezuelan national, Jose Miguel Briceno, who was charged with aggravated assault mass shooting stemming from shooting at the Latinas Sports Bar. A second suspect in the shooting is still being sought and police believe he fled to Mexico, authorities said.
According to a criminal complaint, Briceno, whom authorities said is an undocumented immigrant, used a firearm to shoot inside the doorway of the bar and then discarded the firearm, which law enforcement never recovered. If convicted, he faces a sentence of up to 15 years in prison. Briceno has yet to enter a plea to the charges.
In June, Briceno was among 16 foreign nationals illegally residing in the Houston area indicted on federal drug trafficking and weapons charges following a law enforcement operation targeting Venezuelan nationals and alleged members or associates of the Anti-Tren transnational criminal organization, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
In the indictment, federal prosecutors alleged that the shooting at the Latinas Sports Bar was the result of a “turf war” between the Anti-Tren and the TdA gangs.
“These arrests are the largest takedown of suspected Anti-Tren members and associates by the FBI, so far, and they happened right here in Houston,” Douglas Williams, special agent in charge of the FBI Houston Field Office, said in a June 30 statement. “These individuals are accused of engaging in a turf war with TdA members and carrying out numerous violent crimes throughout our city, including a mass shooting at a local sports bar that left six people wounded. Fortunately, for the good and safety of our community, these individuals are now in federal custody facing U.S. justice.”
