As the frantic nationwide search continues for an alleged Texas mass murderer, the FBI was forced to admit a serious mistake in the early hours of the manhunt.
The search for 38-year-old Francisco Oropesa of Cleveland, Texas, is ongoing for the murder Friday of five innocent people. The bureau warned that the suspect is to be considered armed and dangerous and urged the public not to approach him.
Then the FBI released a photo of the wrong man.
A head shot the agency identified as their suspect displayed the wrong man’s face against a blue backdrop. As it turned out, the man whose face was plastered on the release is a Fort Worth truck driver with no connection to the case.
The mistaken identity centered on a man who spelled his last name with a ‘Z’ instead of an ‘S.’
Jesus. The FBI put out a photo of the wrong guy, accusing him of 5 murders.
After mistakenly raiding some Delta Pilot’s hotel room this week, cuffing and interrogating him, during a training exercise gone wrong this past week. https://t.co/EV3Wag0hLr
— BrutalBrittany💕 (@BrutalBrittany2) May 1, 2023
The husband and father just began a new job last week, and now he and his loved ones are afraid to leave their homes. His sister-in-law, who remained unidentified for safety reasons, asked “what if someone sees the tweet and sees a Facebook share and sees the picture?”
The victim of mistaken identity said he and his family received death threats over the weekend.
This, of course, is the same FBI that barged into a Boston hotel room and bound an unsuspecting Delta pilot recently. He was intensely questioned as part of a training exercise gone horribly wrong for almost an hour before they determined that the team busted into the wrong room.
Other mistakes plagued the investigation. The initial report by authorities claimed the youngest victim, Daniel Guzman, was eight years old. His father has since confirmed that the child was nine.
Another error came from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) office. In the hours after the shooting was discovered, he tweeted that a $50k reward was offered for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrator of the crime.
However, the tweet said the suspect “killed 5 illegal immigrants.” This was quickly followed by a correction from Carlos Eduardo Espina, who identified himself as an immigration activist.
He posted an image of identification showing one of the victims, Diana Velasquez Alvarado, was a legal Permanent Resident of the U.S. since 2021. Abbott was unquestionably trying to do a good thing in publicizing the reward but erred in mentioning the wrong status of the victims.
As for the FBI, the agency committed the serious blunder of not double-checking the photo disseminated in the search for the alleged killer. This latest misstep could have spawned deadly consequences.
