Dallas Just a month before Santos Rodriguez died, he and his
brother, David, 13, left, had their photo taken, leaning against a relative’s
car.
Published: 22
July 2013
Hispanics'
loss of clout on Dallas council reflects difficulty of getting young
disaffected to polls
Around 2 a.m. on July 24, 1973 — 40 years ago — Dallas
police saw three boys running from a darkened Fina gas station in the area now
called Victory Park .
When they investigated, they found that a vending machine had been robbed.
Officer Roy Arnold thought he recognized two of the boys, brothers David and
Santos Rodriguez.
So Arnold and another officer, Darrell Cain, drove to the
home of the boys’ foster grandfather, Carlos Miñez, where the boys were
staying. They roused the family, handcuffed 13-year-old David and 12-year-old
Santos, took them to a parking lot behind the gas station and began questioning
them in Arnold’s squad car — David in the back seat and Santos in front. When
the boys denied any involvement, Cain began playing Russian roulette with Santos
to force a confession. He put the gun to Santos ’
head. Click. He repeated the action. The gun fired, instantly killing Santos
and setting off a series of events that would unify a growing but disorganized
Hispanic community.
Cain was arrested on murder charges but released on $5,000
bond. He was eventually found guilty by an all-white jury in Austin
and sentenced to five years, of which he served half. Anger escalated when
investigators found that fingerprints at the crime scene did not match the
brothers’ prints. Hundreds of Hispanics, joined by black citizens fresh off the
civil rights campaign, came out for a “March for Justice” that was supposed to
be peaceful but turned into a riot. Five police officers were injured, 38
marchers arrested.
The events catapulted Pancho Medrano from a union activist
to a Dallas powerhouse, the
patriarch of a family that has held positions in the judiciary and on the
Dallas City Council and school board. It helped inspire political heavyweights
such as Domingo Garcia and his wife, Elba , into activism
and politics.
Today, that promise of expansive Hispanic leadership and
power is as unfulfilled as the dreams of a murdered 12-year-old.
On this, the 40th anniversary of the death of Santos
Rodriguez and the birth of El Sueño Hispano, only two members of the 14-seat
Dallas City Council are Hispanic. That’s just 14 percent in a city where
Hispanics comprise 42 percent of the population. Despite 72 percent Hispanic
enrollment in the Dallas Independent
School District , the board of
trustees does not have a Hispanic representative. There is a paucity of strong
Latino leaders, and frighteningly few young ones in the wings.
There will be several events Wednesday recalling Santos ’
life and death. Many words will be spoken. Veterans of those times will be
recognized. We hope that, as the community reflects on victories, it also
addresses the hard truths of the unrealized Hispanic dream and uses this day to
recommit to building a new generation of Hispanic leaders: developing
leadership and mentoring programs, promoting education, building citywide
alliances.
After all, outrage without leadership is useless. Santos
Rodriguez deserves better.
Santos Rodriguez events
Wednesday
Saturday
Multicultural rally at 6:30
p.m. at Pike Park ,
2851 Harry Hines Blvd. , Dallas
Continuing through Aug. 31
”Justicia: The Struggle for Mexican-American Civil Rights in
Dallas, Texas, 1920-2012.” At the Latino
Cultural Center ,
open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Tuesday-Saturday
Roberto Corona of the SMU
Human Rights Program cleans the grave of Santos Rodriguez, a 12-year-old whose
death by a Dallas police officer in
1973 stunned the community.
Nearly 40 years ago, a 12-year-old named Santos Rodriguez
was killed with a bullet to the brain fired by a Dallas
police officer. The boy died in the police car’s front seat during an
interrogation in the old Little Mexico neighborhood of Dallas .
At Santos ’ grey
granite headstone in the old Oakland Cemetery
a few weeks back, Roberto Corona stood in the deep thought of his prayers. Corona ,
a community organizer with SMU ’s Embrey
Human Rights Program, never knew Santos ,
but he said he felt connected. “I was thinking he was like a little brother.”
“How could someone do that do another human being?” said
Rais Bhuiyan, who himself was nearly killed by a white supremist at a Dallas
gas station a few days after the 9-11 attacks. Bhuiyan is now a frequent
speaker against violence.
“He was just a normal kid born in a bad situation,” said
Olinka Green, as she touched the gravestone.
Through the years, Santos
inspired other homages in Baptist, Methodist and Catholic churches. This time,
the story of Santos brings together
communities of Mexican-Americans, Mexican immigrants, African-Americans, Pakistan
and Bangladesh
immigrants and whites.
The Dallas Mexican American Historical League plans
a panel discussion on July 24st at the Latino
Cultural Center
to look at the past and what’s changed since. Folks brought together by SMU ’s
Human Rights Program plan a memorial event or two, either at the
cemetery, the site where Santos died, or his old playground of Pike’s Park.
Theater director Cora Cardona and her husband Jeff Hurst may
restage a play based on Santos ’
life that first debuted some 20 years ago. Santos ’
death still haunts many, Cardona said.
“When you touch a child, that is when the community bursts,”
Cardona said. “It becomes their son, too.”
Indeed, it did. Four days after Santos
took a bullet near his left ear, a small riot broke out in downtown Dallas
after hundreds marched down to police headquarters to protest police brutality
against Mexican-Americans and African-Americans. Five police officers were
injured and 38 persons were arrested, according to news clips of that time.
In one of his last photos, Santos
peers out with toothy grin under thick wavy hair and large dark eyes. He was a
suspect in a burglary of less than $10 from a soda machine at a Fina gas
station at 2301 Cedar Springs Road .
At the time of the shooting, his young mother, Bessie Garcia
Rodriguez, was in prison for the murder of a man some said had abused her. She
was released on a three-day pass to attend the funeral. She had five children,
including her son David who was one year older than Santos .
David sat in the police car when his brother died in what he described as a
game of Russian roulette.
At the time of the shooting, the owner of the Fina gas
station told a Dallas Morning News reporter he doubted Santos
had committed the burglary. An official investigation found fingerprints didn’t
even match those of the dead boy.
Police officer Darrell L. Cain testified Santos
denied burglarizing the soda machine, according to the murder trial
transcripts. Santos ’ last words,
Cain said, were: “I am telling the truth.”
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