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By J. David Goodman
Photographs by Verónica G. Cárdenas
Zavala County, Texas Reports
Jairo Lerma and several of his relatives placed a wooden cross in the dry grass along a Texas highway where his parents, en route from Georgia to Mexico, were killed in a violent collision with an oncoming car carrying migrants and fleeing a sheriff’s deputy.
Shortly before the Nov. 8 crash, her mother, Isabel, had texted her that she and her husband, Jose Carlos, a retired employee at a carpet factory in Dalton, Georgia, would soon be at the border. A curve about 100 kilometers away, along with five migrants and the driver of the other car, a 21-year-old man.
“I blame the sheriff’s office because they were chasing at high speed in a dangerous place,” Mr. Lerma said. “It’s possible that it was simply avoided. “
In recent years, U. S. police departments have reevaluated when and how to prosecute fugitive suspects, adopting policies tailored to the number of damaging high-speed pursuits.
But in Texas, state police and sheriff’s offices are notable exceptions, police experts said, retaining broad discretion to initiate prosecution that their officials deem appropriate. The technique differs even from departments in the state’s major cities, such as Houston, where police recently banned misdemeanor prosecutions.
The number of lawsuits across Texas increased dramatically in 2021, when Gov. Greg Abbott introduced a program known as Operation Lone Star and sent thousands of state police troopers to patrol the domain around the border.
The lawsuits, which suddenly erupt as a result of traffic stops, have left dozens dead and dozens injured, as well as bystanders, shaking border communities from El Paso to Brownsville.
High-speed chases are part of Mr. M. ‘s competitive approach. Abbott is facing a surge in migrant arrivals at the border, a strategy that has led to clashes with the Biden administration. The federal government has reviewed the movements of Texas’ Lone Star police operation, adding its operations in spaces where migrants drowned in the Rio Grande, though no primary action has been taken to curb the program.
In Zavala County, where Mr. Lerma’s parents were killed, citizens have faced a sharp increase in persecutions. State Police alone conducted at least 175 vehicle stops in Zavala County during the first two years of Operation Lone Star, according to knowledge provided through the department. The year before the border surveillance program, there were seven.
“It’s dangerous,” said Paul Rodriguez, who drives a taco truck with his wife on Highway 57, where many of the lawsuits have taken place. “It may be successful on us or on other people who are buying food. “
The owner of a towing company that transports wrecked vehicles used by fleeing immigrant smugglers said he advises his circle of family members not to drive on Highway 57. The mayor of Crystal City, the largest network in this sparsely populated ranch area. Land County said it’s avoiding the road altogether after seeing the twisted wreckage of the chase.
“I’ve stopped this road,” Mayor Frank Moreno Jr. said in an interview at City Hall. “After all the years I’ve been in the military, I don’t think something like this will make me suffer. “
The state’s Public Safety Department said it counted another 29 people killed in interests through its foot soldiers in 2021 and 2022, the first two years of Operation Lone Star, about double the number in the last two years. The figures do not include prosecutions through other law enforcement agencies working with the state as a component of Operation Lone Star, according to the report.
A Human Rights Watch media investigation suggests that more than 60 more people were killed in Operation Lone Star in July 2023. A report from the organization was expected on Monday.
The increase in the number of deaths appears to be closely followed by the increase in prosecutions through state police. In South Texas counties along or near the border, lawsuits doubled to 1,100 in 2022, up from about 500 in 2019. According to the department’s data, there were about 4 times more in those counties than in and around primary cities like Dallas and Houston.
This year, the federal Customs and Border Protection agency, whose agents have been implicated in fatal prosecutions, imposed new threat tests and restrictions as part of its processing policy.
“It’s evolved pretty dramatically,” said Travis Yates, a police teacher and retired principal of the Tulsa Police Department. Thirty years ago, most departments were chasing those who fled, he said. “You see, the trend is to give agents very strict measures. “parameters. “
However, many departments stick to the old and this is left to the discretion of individual officials.
“The state police are the ones who have the most difficulty” in restricting interests, Geoffrey P. said. Alpert, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina who has studied police interests extensively. “Their job is traffic. That’s what they do. So if someone runs away from them, it’s an affront.
He added that the Texas State Police are “very aggressive” when it comes to prosecutions.
Steven McCraw, director of the Department of Public Safety, said in a telephone interview that the branch relies on its soldiers on when to initiate a process and when to cancel it.
The sector, he explained, also uses a variety of other equipment to prevent cars from escaping, such as following helicopters over the road, using “prevention sticks” on the road or, where appropriate, installing a GPS tracker as prevention. commonly used in urban settings, a branch official said).
“I would say you can mitigate the risks,” he said. But by not prosecuting them, he added, “you’re only rewarding the Mexican cartels” for their smuggling efforts. He said he hoped his infantrymen would prosecute them “sensibly” and that they would be held accountable if they did not act with due caution.
“Frankly, I think it’s a much bigger technique than capitulating to the cartels,” he said.
Abbott blamed Operation Lone Star for thousands of human smuggling arrests of U. S. citizens hired to expel immigrants from border counties. A new law, expected to go into effect next year, increases the penalty for trafficking to a minimum of 10 years. .
Most of the drivers are Texans recruited with the promise of making money, the sergeant said. “A lot of them are teenagers that we’re chasing,” he said in an interview during a recent patrol, before dawn.
The twist of fate that claimed the lives of Mr. Lerma’s parents is still under investigation. Deputy Chief Ricardo Rios said the policy of the Zavala County Sheriff’s Office is to defer to the officer’s discretion, taking into account the location, whether in the city or on the highway. road – as well as traffic on the road.
In September 2021, Gabriel Salazar, a 19-year-old from San Antonio with a large social media following, was killed in a twist of fate with three immigrants while fleeing a traffic stop in Crystal City. A sheriff’s deputy used “a tire deflation device. “” before the accident, the branch said.
Mr. Salazar was driving a white Chevrolet Camaro, which he had purchased with the help of his mother a few days earlier, said his sister, Danna Salazar. “He was very excited when they gave it to him,” she said. to file a complaint against the police officers, whom they accuse of being guilty of the accident, they have not yet been able to locate a lawyer to represent them, Salazar said. “He had a lot of goals,” he said of his brother. “He wants to be a model. “
Zavala County, once a commercial spinach grower, is not directly along the Rio Grande but supplies the connection between the border town of Eagle Pass and Interstate 35.
During his patrol, Sgt. López pointed out the positions used to hide migrants waiting to be picked up on the roads: a deserted house, now filled with discarded clothes and backpacks; A hiding place in the bushes.
Beyond the fences of a ranch, an SUV. that he had been involved in a twist of fate last year sitting in a mesquite forest, near a mooing cattle.
“They came from the highway to here,” said Eddie Gomez, a ranch worker. He said migrants still crossed the hunting ranch on foot, cutting the fence and rarely allowing deer to escape.
In recent months, citizens say, the number of prosecutions appears to be decreasing. However, concerns arose of a sudden chase.
For the annual Spinach Festival in Crystal City, where a painted statue of Popeye from the 1930s stands prominently in front of City Hall, City Manager Felix Benavides said he placed police cars as cover in case a fleeing suspect crashed during the celebration.
“As a city manager, that is my biggest concern,” Benavides said. “These are the disorders we face in America. “
J. David Goodman is the head of the Houston office, which covers Texas. He has been writing for The Times since 2012 about government, criminal justice and the role of politicians in politics. Learn more about J. David Goodman
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