Phoenix Police Release Sketches of Serial Street Shooter’ After 7 Deaths. An $11,000 reward is being

BATON ROUGE - Two East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office deputies and two Baton Rouge Police Department officers were killed and three others wounded during this Sunday morning shooting on Airline Highway near the Hammond Aire Plaza. Authorities have confirmed that the first of three suspects is a Missouri man.

The United States is being attacked Domestically and our worst enemies are the guns in the wrong hands with people full of hatred, accompanied by a huge storm of discrimination that do not seem to want to move away from our American soil, but on the contrary it seems that this stagnant in our coasts and lands far from east to west and from north to south of the U.S. and in many countries of our continent.We must unite and fight tirelessly for peace of the United States of America and the peace of the rest of America and the world. Created by Mariana DAngelo/ CEO The Global News Today

Young and people of all ages and different ethnics are dying on the streets from gunfire. Whether you are black or White, we must all rally together to Stop gun violence.

A new composite sketch of a suspect in the mysterious Phoenix serial killings was released Thursday.The suspect is a lanky Hispanic male under 5 feet, 10 inches tall, said Sgt. Jonathan Howard of the Phoenix Police Department.The sketch is the newest development in the ongoing investigation into the man they have named “the serial street shooter.” It’s the result of new witness information.

Police said they have connected seven killings and the wounding of two people to an elusive suspect — or possibly suspects — who blasts away at his victims at night with a semi-automatic handgun.”All of the witnesses have described that the suspect was outside of his car,” said Howard. “We have not found any link between any of the victims to each other or the shooter.”

The shootings began March 17, when a 16-year-old boy was shot and wounded while walking on the street at 11:30 p.m., police said.

A 21-year-old man was shot and wounded the next night.

Two people were killed in April and two in June. The last shooting happened June 12, when three people were shot and killed in front of a home around 3 a.m.

Authorities have released a sketch of the suspect and said witnesses describe him as a light-skinned Latino or white man in his 20s.

The shootings are concentrated in the low-income neighborhood of Maryvale, with many of the victims shot while standing outside their homes, police said.

PHOENIX - Mel Nicholson has lived in his Maryvale home 45 years. The Vietnam veteran has seen a lot of changes in that time.

"There were only three houses in the whole area,” he said.

With progress, however, often comes problems and trouble. The neighborhood his home is in has seen its fair share of crime. Two weeks ago, that violence found his front porch.

“This is where one of the bullets hit my house,” he said pointing to the damage. His home and car were hit three times.

The target of the bullets was a 19-year-old man who was killed while sitting in his car. Police say the shooting was random and have connected it to three other shootings.

“We have dozens of officers out on patrol tonight,” Phoenix Police Sgt. Jonathan Howard said.

So far, six people have been shot and, of them, five were killed by the shooter or shooters.

The youngest victim is a 12-year-old girl. All of the shootings happened when the victims were in front of their home or the home of someone they knew. The shootings were also all in the evening or the overnight hours. Police say they have no good suspect information and no solid description of a vehicle used in the shootings.

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Nicholson said it won’t stop him from going about his daily routine but added it’s tough right now. “It’s some bad feelings go on around here,” he said.

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Along with extra patrol officers on the streets, neighbors can also expect to see a group of Guardian Angels. The group plans to patrol the neighborhood on Friday night in hopes of reassuring neighbors.

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“I truly believe we can do a little thing and help figure out what is going on with these incidents,” said Zippie, who did not want to give his real name.

Police are telling residents to feel safe when going about their daily routine but to be extra cautious and diligent when out at night.

“Look around when you’re outside and call us if you see something suspicious,” said Sgt. Howard.

An $11,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to an arrest.

After Horacio de Jesus Pena was gunned down in his driveway while returning home from his job at a group home, detectives asked his family the usual questions. Did he have a beef with somebody? Did he owe anyone money? Was he mixed up in something dangerous?

Nearly a month later, police are asking a different question about Pena's death and four other chillingly similar murders since April: Is there a serial killer on the loose in Phoenix?

All the victims — male and female, ranging in age from 12 to 32 — were shot dead outside their homes, near their cars, on weekend evenings in the working-class neighborhood of Maryvale.

Those details and the lack of obvious motive in each case led investigators to link the slayings, but multiple law enforcement sources confirmed there is also physical evidence tying them together.

Police have stepped up uniformed and undercover patrols, reviewed shootings in surrounding counties, and put out a public appeal for information that has so far yielded frustratingly few tips.

Pena's twin sister Nancy told NBC News that as she mourns her brother — "the sweetest, nicest person ever" — she worries that the killer or killers will strike again.

"For not one person to have more information is mind-blowing," she said. "This person is still out there. We need to get them off the street."

Murder victim Horacio de Jesus Pena and his twin sister Nancy Pena. Courtesy Nancy Pena

Police are preaching vigilance, and some residents are staying indoors in the evenings. The Phoenix chapter of the Guardian Angels is out on patrol a few times a week.

"We met up at a grocery store parking lot on a Friday evening, which is payday for people so it should be crowded, but that parking lot was like a ghost town," said chapter leader Mike Upchurch. "People are afraid of what's going on."

According to police, the first homicide in the pattern happened on April 1. Diego Verdugo-Sanchez, 21, was visiting his pregnant fiancee's family and had stepped out to lock his car door when he was killed.

In an obituary, his family called him a "gentle giant" lost to "senseless gun violence."

"Diego was the youngest of four, but full of life at every second," they wrote. "Diego was always willing to drop whatever he was doing to help a loved one, no matter what the situation was."

Pena, 32, had just gotten out of his car at his family home on June 3 when he was ambushed. "He wasn't even two feet away from his car door," said his sister Nancy.

She got a call to come to the house and arrived to find her brother lifeless on the ground, surrounded by police.

"I just thought he was in the wrong place at the wrong time," she said.

A week later, 19-year-old Manuel Castro Garcia was standing outside his home when he was murdered. A sports fan with "a great sense of humor," he worked as a welder with his father, according to his obituary.

"[He] was always playing pranks on everyone," it said. "He was always known for making faces in family photos."

Manuel Castro Garcia, Horacio De Jesus Pena and Diego Verdugo Sanchez are all victims of recent shootings in the Maryvale section of Phoenix. Silent Witness Arizona

Two days later, on June 12, the killer struck again, opening fire on two women and a girl listening to music outside a home.

Angela Linner, 31, was killed, along with 12-year-old Maleah Russell. Maleah's mother, Stefanie Ellis, was critically wounded and remains in the hospital.

"They didn't even know what hit them," Stefanie Ellis' father told NBC affiliate KPNX. "They can do that to anybody, anywhere and they're still out there."

Phoenix Police Sgt. Jon Howard told NBC News that since investigators publicly announced the four shootings were linked on June 21, there has been little progress in the investigation.

"There's been no activity, very few tips," he said. None of the shootings were caught on video, and witness descriptions of possible suspects have varied, giving investigators no strong leads to follow, he said.

Howard said investigators can't even say for sure if it's a single killer or a group working together. And there are no known links between the victims, so police have not determined how the shooter chooses the targets.

Nancy Pena said she could not fathom why someone would mark her brother for death. Born 30 minutes after her with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, he struggled with mental illness and physical challenges for years.

But in the last few years, his life started to turn around. He started running marathons, joined a church and began working at a group home for people with special needs. His sister last saw him the day before he died when he offered to take her son to a summer program because she was sick.

She texted a thank-you message to him later and he replied with a smiling emoji.

"He was an amazing guy and he overcame everything," she said. "He ended his life on a very high note."