‘They were friends; he killed him:’ Uncle of 9-year-old Texas shooting victim speaks out

The 9-year-old boy who was shot and killed by a neighbor who had been asked not to fire a gun near the family’s home was friends with the shooter’s son, according to the boy’s uncle.

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“But my nephew, he always would take his bicycle to where the school bus would stop,” Ramiro Guzman told NBC News. “Sometimes they went together, my nephew and his child.”

“They always went on their bicycles together. They were like friends. And he killed him,” Guzman said of the suspect, Francisco Oropesa.

Guzman’s nephew, Daniel Enrique Laso, was one of five people killed in the Friday shooting in Cleveland, Texas, a town northeast of Houston. Police are still looking for Oropesa, who fled after the shootings.

According to Wilson Garcia, the boy’s father, he and two other people had gone to “respectfully” ask Oropesa to shoot his gun farther away from the house because a baby was trying to sleep.

A few minutes later, Oropesa came to the house armed with a rifle and began shooting.

Daniel’s mother, Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25, was also killed along with Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18, Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21, and Julisa Molina Rivera, 31.

All five were shot in the head, according to police.

Sixteen members of Guzman’s extended family, including Guzman, were in the home at the time, police said. According to Garcia, some ran and others hid in the home. Guzman said he hid in a closet with his wife and child.

Guzman, who also lost his sister in the attack, told NBC that his nephew was like a second son to him.

“We were so close throughout our whole lives, ever since he was born,” he said. “I would take him to wherever he wanted to go. After school, he liked to come play with my son. As soon as he got home from school he would come play with my son. He was always there waiting. And now …”