Neighbor of Alvarado ICE facility attack suspect said she was pretty friendly
The neighbor of a woman accused of taking part in a July 4 shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility described her as cordial and friendly.
Fitness trainer John Thurmond has lived next door to Maricela Rueda since she moved to Fort Worth’s Eastgate neighborhood in 2016.
She was one of the 10 people charged with attempted murder and discharging a firearm in furtherance of a crime after an Alvarado police officer was shot in the neck responding to what federal authorities are calling a “planned ambush.”
Thurmond described Rueda as a lover of nature, animals, and said she liked to spend a lot of time in her backyard with her young daughter.
He recalled a time he’d trapped a raccoon on his roof and wanted to call animal control, but relented when Rueda requested she be allowed to take it and release the animal back into the wild.
Thurmond said they only interacted in-person a handful of times, but those interactions were pretty friendly.
“I kind of knew she was a little on the left as politics go when she put up a ‘Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer’ sign for Halloween (in 2018),” he said, adding it stayed up for about two years after that.
She seemed to work a lot after getting a job at UPS, Thurmond said. He also noted he found a profile online stating Rueda was working as a birth and postpartum doula.
Things went down hill in the relationship in May 2024 when Thurmond took issue with some of the bonfires Rueda was having in her backyard.
Rueda wouldn’t always put the fires out completely and the smoke would get sucked into a window mounted air conditioning unit in Thurmond’s master bedroom, he said.
His then-girlfriend (now wife) was 35 weeks pregnant, and the smoke was really bothering them.
“I figured she’d have a little sympathy with my wife being pregnant, and she was kind of... not super nasty, but her tone in the text messages was pretty off putting,” he said.
Rueda described the bonfires as having deep spiritual and religious significance for her and her household, according to text messages Thurmond shared with the Star-Telegram.
“I am willing to accommodate, but have you considered putting a box around your unit before contacting me?” she asked in the text messages.
Thurmond responded by saying he respected her religious practices, and hoped they could come up with a reasonable solution. He said the pair haven’t talked since then.
Thurmond said he was surprised when he learned Rueda had been accused of taking part in the incident at the Prairieland Detention Center.
In the nearly nine years they’ve been neighbors, she never bothered anyone that much, he said.
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