Rooftop shooter lured brothers to house on Snapchat — then opened fire, Texas cops say
An 18-year-old Texas man opened fire on a small crowd that had gathered outside an east Houston home for a fist fight on Thursday, killing two teen brothers, police say.
Marlon Valdez waited on the roof of the house, where he had lured the two brothers, Josue and Maximo Aguilar, and several others, Houston police said in a news release. Houston police identified 18-year-old Valdez as the suspect and arrested him less than a mile away at his residence on Maxey Road on Saturday, according to court records.
Valdez was a senior at Galena Park’s North Shore High School before his arrest, according to KPRC.
Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo was visibly shaken while giving updates to the media during the investigation, video obtained by the station shows.
“It is a rifle that had a 30-round clip,” Acevedo told media at the scene. “With ammunition that’s not designed to hunt — that’s not designed to do anything but kill people, okay?”
Police say Valdez waited with that high-powered rifle on the roof Thursday afternoon and lured the two brothers to the house on Snapchat, KTRK reported. The brothers went to the house under the assumption that they were there for a fist fight, the police release says.
Valdez told the judge at his initial court hearing that he is from Mexico, and not a U.S. citizen, according to KTRK.
Acevedo said that the fight scheduled for Thursday was a continuation of another fight between two groups of young Hispanic males, ages 18-21, that had occurred a few days prior in the same neighborhood, according to KPRC.
But when the Aguilar brothers arrived with several others, Josue was shot and killed at the scene, while Maximo was shot and taken to a nearby hospital, where he later died, according to the Houston Chronicle.
“Two other victims, a 23-year-old male and a 18-year-old female, were also wounded in the gunfire and were transported to an area hospital in stable condition,” the police release states.
Valdez is being held at the Harris County Jail with no bond, on a capital murder charge, according to court records. He was picked up Saturday on a warrant for a July 2018 charge of evading arrest, KTRK reported, before he was then charged with capital murder.
“Investigators are looking for two, possibly more suspects” in the case, according to the original HPD release, so police say they are not ruling out additional arrests in connection with the rooftop shooting.
