Crete, Nebraska: 7 shot in 'welcoming community' by neighbor who 'hated everybody' (2024)

CRETE, Neb. — On a sultry late Friday afternoon, Maria Garcia sat on the grass in the shade of her home’s front yard and chatted with her sister as eight children, ages 3 to 13, played around them.

The casual summer calm was suddenly broken by a loud blast, and the bike helmet flew off the head of Garcia’s 3-year- old grandchild, Adrian.

The boy had been struck in the head by pellets from a shotgun blast. The gathered family realized a neighbor was shooting at them from a window in his home across the street.

Panicked, Garcia rushed to Adrian’s aid when she, too, was hit by a blast of shotgun fire. There were more shots as Garcia’s husband, Alberto Bautista, and another man ran out of the home to try to usher all the kids inside to safety.

By the time the shooting and chaos had stopped, seven people, including four children, had been injured, and the shooter, a reclusive man with a history of conflicts with his neighbors, lay dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The Nebraska State Patrol identified the shooter Saturday as 74-year-old Bill Booth.

Booth had killed himself before law enforcement officers made contact with him, authorities said. They said his body was found in his home with the shotgun used in the shootings.

Three of the shooting victims remained hospitalized Saturday, including 3-year-old Adrian. But all are expected to survive.

‘He hated everybody’ neighbor says of alleged shooter

Crete Police Chief Gary Young said investigators were still trying to determine the motive for the mass shooting, but he did not rule out a racial motivation.

The family of victims were Guatemalan immigrants, the shooter was White.

Young said police previously received a complaint from the victims’ family that Booth had flipped them off and told them to go back to where they came from and “speak English.” The family did not press charges, he said.

“The context to ‘go home’ and ‘speak English’ lends itself to that,” Young said when asked about a possible racial motive.

It’s also known Booth, who lived alone, had a history of conflict with a number of White neighbors on his street, too.

“He hated everybody,” said Dave Hansen, whose home is right next door to Booth’s.

The Friday shooting shook the diverse town of 7,000 located 25 miles southwest of Lincoln. Crete is home to both Doane College and a number of big blue-collar employers, among them a pork-processing facility and a pet food manufacturer.

While the rural town has changed a lot in recent decades — with roughly 50% of the population now Hispanic and almost one-fourth foreign born — neighbors said Crete is generally a place where people of all races live together in harmony.

“Crete is normally a nice little town,” said Saline County Clerk Diann Nettifee, a lifelong resident who lives just two doors down from the victims’ home.

She said two of the Bautista Garcia children frequently join her when she walks her dog, a mini Aussie named Oscar.

“Every time Oscar comes out, they come running, ‘Oscar, Oscar,’ ” Nettifee said. “Sweet little girls.”

Dulce Castaneda, a 30-year-old whose family is from Mexico, said she believes Crete has adjusted to its new diversity.

“I generally like to think of it as a pretty welcoming community,” said Castaneda, now a Texas resident who was back in Crete on Saturday visiting her parents.

Jason Wit, who lives two doors down from Booth, agreed the neighborhood is a quiet one where everyone tends to get along.

“We’ll kind of stay in our own little circles, and it’s pretty sweet and simple,” he said. “We’ll get back to that.”

But several people who lived close to Booth said he had a recent history of conflict with his neighbors — including one about three weeks ago involving the family he fired upon Friday.

Neighbors said Booth had moved into the neighborhood about 10 years ago and largely kept to himself. But when he did have contact with neighbors in recent years, there was often conflict.

Roger Dageforde said Booth once came to his front door and accused him of speeding down the street.

“He chewed me out,” said Dageforde, who denied he was driving too fast.

Dageforde said earlier this spring when he was selling flags for the American Legion, Booth turned him away without opening his front door.

“He said, ‘Go away,’” Dageforde said.

Hansen, Booth’s next-door neighbor, said he had had a half-dozen conflicts with Booth in recent years.

About a month ago, Booth left a message on Hansen’s answering machine accusing him of crossing the unmarked property line into his yard as Hansen was cutting the grass. Booth swore at Hansen and told him he’d call the police if it happened again.

“He could turn pretty quick,” Hansen said of Booth’s temper.

Around three weeks ago, Hansen said, Booth was angered when one of the Bautista Garcia children came into his yard to retrieve a soccer ball.

Booth came out, confronted the children and swore at them, said another neighbor who witnessed the same incident. That neighbor was concerned enough to call the police — possibly the same incident cited by the Crete police chief.

Brenda Bautista Garcia, 13, said Booth had yelled at members of her family on multiple occasions.

“He told us to go back to our country and we don’t belong here,” she said.

3-year-old was first hit with gunfire, family said

It’s unclear if there was an immediate precipitator to Friday’s shooting, which police said occurred around 4:43 p.m.

Jaime Castaneda was standing in his front yard when he heard loud noises up the street as he was talking to a man who had come to paint his house.

“I think it’s fireworks,” the painter said.

“Those aren’t fireworks,” Castaneda replied. “Those are gunshots.”

He could see what appeared to be gunfire coming from Booth’s home, and saw the adults and children in the yard across the street scrambling.

Brenda Bautista Garcia said 3-year-old Adrian was the first hit. The family believes the bike helmet that went flying may have protected him from more serious injury.

“Then (Booth) started shooting everyone else and we had to run inside,” Brenda said.

Maria Garcia, 40, was shot as she tried to scoop up Adrian, her grandson. Maria’s daughter, 8-year-old Angelica, was also hit, as were two of Maria’s sister’s children, 11-year-old Belinda and 10-year-old Sonya.

Maria’s husband, 43-year-old Bautista, and another man who was visiting the home were wounded as they attempted to usher the children into the safety of the home.

Once inside, they called 911. Dispatchers put out a call of an active shooter in the 1200 block of Crestline Drive.

Officers with the Crete Police Department arrived on the scene just a few minutes later and heard continued gunfire, said Col. John Bolduc of the Nebraska State Patrol. As officers reached the victims’ house, Bolduc said, they heard a single gunshot come from the house across the street at 1810 Parkland Drive — Booth’s home.

First responders immediately began carrying victims from the back of the Bautista Garcia house to safety. Six of the victims were taken by ambulance to the Crete Area Medical Center. The seventh victim didn’t realize until later he had been injured, Bolduc said.

A SWAT team forced its way into the Parkland Drive house and found Booth dead with a shotgun next to him, according to authorities.

Booth was determined to be the sole shooter. While a second firearm was found in his house, all gunfire is believed to have come from a shotgun, and all of the injuries are consistent with shotgun blasts, Bolduc said.

Most of the victims were in the front yard when they were shot, but at least one person was inside the house when struck, Bolduc said.

Three of the victims remained hospitalized as of Saturday afternoon, one at Bryan Health in Lincoln and two at Children’s Nebraska hospital in Omaha.

“One person was hit by one pellet, one person was hit by many, but thankfully, again, at this point, we believe that all will survive,” Bolduc said. “But some will take some time to recover.”

On Saturday morning, the intersection of Crestline and Parkland was serene, the only sound was of birds and the distant hum of lawn mowers.

But the evidence of the violence the day before was evident.

There were four vehicles parked in front of the Bautista Garcia home with windows shot out, shattered glass littering the street.

In the front yard lay the bike helmet, a cellphone and a baby blanket, all left behind in the scramble to get away.

Across the street, the front porch of Booth’s home was covered with glass and shredded wood from authorities’ forced entrance, the doorway now covered by a big sheet of wood.

Two doors down, Nettifee, the county clerk, recounted the tragic events of the previous day. She was relieved to hear that it appeared all the children will be OK.

“Oh, thank goodness,” she said. “I will be keeping my fingers crossed.”