Local and federal authorities confirmed on Thursday that the suspect arrested for a deadly shooting in a Chick-Fil-A is in the United States illegally.
As Fox News reports, 37-year-old Oved Bernardo Mendoza Argueta, originally from El Salvador, has been charged with capital murder after the shooting on Wednesday in Irving, Texas, which left two people dead.
“We can confirm that the suspect was taken into custody early this morning,” a spokesman for the Irving Police Department confirmed on Thursday, noting that Argueta had an “ICE hold” that had been issued by the Immigration and Naturalization Service of Dallas-Fort Worth.
An ICE spokesman also confirmed that the agency had “lodged an immigration detainer with the Irving Police Department on Mendoza.”
Argueta was identified as the suspect by his wife, a Chick-Fil-A employee who “identified the defendant with certainty.” One of the victims was a woman named Patricia Portillo, while the other victim’s name has not yet been released pending notification of the family. During the brief manhunt, Argueta’s picture was posted to aid in the public search, along with an image of the 4-door 1997 Honda that Argueta used to flee the scene.
Officials said that the shooting was most likely “a targeted incident and that this was not a random act of violence.”
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