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A Texas family hunted for a teen vandal. Instead, they killed an innocent neighbor, police said.

Four Texas family members were charged with murder after police say they stopped a car and fatally shot a driver in a case of mistaken identity. (KTRK)

Nineteen-year-old Joe Argueta and his family were fed up. They believed a friend of the teenager’s ex-girlfriend had been vandalizing their house and cars, so they came up with a plan to “take care of it,” according to a police report reviewed by KTRK.

Then they waited, watching for the vandal’s dark-colored Dodge Charger to roll through their suburban enclave west of Houston. On Monday, police said, they saw their chance.

Argueta and his mother, father and uncle hopped into two cars, sped into the street and blocked the car’s path. Then Joe Argueta allegedly chased the car on foot as it tried to escape, firing a gun repeatedly.

One of those shots killed the driver. But it wasn’t the teenage vandal the family had been looking for, police said: It was Eddie Clark, 29, an innocent neighbor driving to his home around the corner.

Now Argueta faces murder charges along with his mother, Florinda Argueta, 39, his father, Luis Argueta, 45, and his uncle, Margarito Alcantar, 29 — all in what Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez called a case of “mistaken identity.”

“This is an example of taking the law into your hands,” a judge admonished Joe Argueta in a court appearance broadcast by KTRK. “Any other harm or destruction to your own residence or home, repeatedly or otherwise, it doesn’t justify taking the law into your own hands and then mistaking the person.”

For weeks, Florinda Argueta had been calling authorities about damage to her family’s home and cars inside Westminster Village, a quiet warren of two-story homes with grassy yards on Houston’s western fringes. She also pointed police toward a suspect: a male teenage friend of her son’s ex-girlfriend who drove a black Dodge Charger.

Growing frustrated as the vandalism continued, KTRK reported, the family came up with a plan to confront the teenager themselves the next time he came into their neighborhood.

They pounced around 11:35 p.m. on Monday, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said — apparently not noticing that the car they’d spotted was actually a gray Dodge Challenger, not a black Dodge Charger. Security footage aired by KTRK shows two cars blocking the street before a man jumps out of one vehicle and runs down the road.

Joe Argueta ran to the Challenger with a gun in his hand, while one of his relatives approached with a bat, police said. When the car tried to flee, Argueta allegedly started firing at the car until it crashed into a tree.

Clark managed to jump out and run away, but soon collapsed. He was airlifted to Memorial Hermann hospital, where he died from a gunshot wound.

Police arrested Joe Argueta at the scene and said he later told investigators about the family’s plot and his role in shooting at the car. His mother was interviewed at the scene and was initially released, while his father and uncle fled before officers arrived.

On Wednesday, all four family members were charged with murder. It’s unclear from police records whether they have attorneys.

Clark, the victim, lived in the same neighborhood and didn’t know the Arguetas, police said.

“Seems like a tragic case of mistaken identify,” said Gonzalez, who was nominated by President Biden last month to serve as director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

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