A Guatemalan family who was targeted by their neighbor in Nebraska told police that the man had tried to start a fight and “flipped them off” five weeks before he shot seven people at their home last weekend.
The neighbor, Billy Booth, 74, was found dead of a self-inflected gunshot wound at the family’s home after the Friday attack, which the Nebraska State Police is investigating as a possible hate crime.
All seven, including four children, have been released from the hospital, police said.
In the earlier incident on May 21, the family called police to report that Booth was calling them names, but no direct threat was made, according to the department.
Officers took statements from family members but they were “not interested in being involved in a legal dispute,” according to the police report.
Police said Booth, who is white, had been involved in previous conflicts with several of his white neighbors, as well as the Guatemalan family.
Dave Hansen, who lives next door to Booth, said he did not believe the shooting was racially motivated.
“I don’t care what the police say, I lived next to that guy for 10 years. and he wasn’t racist,” Hansen said. “But I feel very lucky he didn’t shoot me.”
Hansen said Booth fired a shotgun at members of the Guatemalan family after some kids walked onto his property to retrieve a soccer ball.
He said Booth often antagonized residents over decreasing property value.
“Anybody who didn’t take care of their yard, he was all over you,” Hansen said. “The last seven years were hell.”
The seven victims were from the state of Huehuetenango in Guatemala and of mixed legal status to be in the U.S., according to the Guatemalan Consul General’s Office in Omaha.
At the time of the shooting, a family gathering was taking place at the home, authorities said. Two of the victims worked at the Smithfield Foods meatpacking company in Crete, the consul general’s office said.
“We are thinking of and concerned about members of our team who have been affected,” Smithfield spokesman Jim Monroe said in a statement. “We hope they will focus on family and recovery at this time.”
Police said calls concerning Booth and the family date back to 2021, most being complaints from Booth regarding “driving behavior.”
During the altercation in May, Booth told members of the Guatemalan family to “go home” or “back to where they came from” and to “speak English,” police said.
Billy Muñoz, consul general of the Guatemalan Consulate in Omaha, said his office would do what it could to help the family.
“Unfortunately, (the) consulate is taking into account that it is an election year where it’s like hate will be more frequent,” Muñoz said.
Saul Lopez, interim executive director of Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim, a nonprofit that supports Indigenous people in Nebraska, said many immigrants have had trouble adjusting to life in the state.
“Nebraska is a very difficult environment for immigrants,” he said. “It is not an ideal place where immigrants can move into. It is a very hard place because a lot of people do not like immigrants at all.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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