The Latino community in the Texan city of Dallas remembers this weekend the death 50 years ago of Santos Rodríguez, 12, at the hands of a white police officer who shot him in the head while playing Russian roulette to make him confess to the theft of $8.
This is one of the most painful anniversaries of police brutality against Latinos in the United States, but also the most forgotten, said the organizers of the events.
For two weeks and with more than a dozen activities, the Santos Vive Coalition will remember the tragedy of the young man at the hands of police officer Darrell Cain on July 24, 1973 in the Little Mexico neighborhood.
It is about keeping alive the memory of “one of the ugliest events of police misconduct in Texas and the United States,” said Domingo García, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), which is part of the coalition.
The idea is to educate the entire community, he added.
The tragic story began when two officers arrived in the neighborhood to investigate the theft of $8 from a vending machine at an area gas station.
Santos and his 13-year-old brother David were identified by the agents as the main suspects and taken out of their adoptive home at dawn. The agents did not present an arrest warrant to the guardian of the minors.
The brothers were handcuffed and put inside a patrol car.
Trying to obtain a confession, the policeman took out his revolver, removed the bullets and – as he later testified – did not see that any cartridges were left in the cylinder. He then began playing Russian roulette with the minors.
The officer pointed the gun at the head of Santos, who was in the front seat of the vehicle, and pulled the trigger. But he did not get any confession. The children maintained that they were innocent and the officer decided to keep up the pressure.
Cain pulled the trigger again and this time a bullet went through the head of Santos, who was handcuffed and died instantly in front of his brother, who was in the back seat.
The tragedy shocked the city and exposed the abuses by the police against the Mexican-American community. After the death, protests and riots, which left at least five police officers injured, made themselves heard at Dallas City Hall.
Dallas police chief at the time, Frank Dyson, brought murder charges against Cain, who was found guilty and sentenced to just five years in prison by an all-white jury. He was released after serving only half of his sentence.
For decades neither the Rodríguez family nor the community received an apology, nor any compensation.
Only in 2013 did then-Mayor of Dallas Mike Rawlings apologize.
David never received psychological support.
“He is still traumatized and suffers a lot,” Hilda Duarte, a director of LULAC Dallas, who participated in the demonstrations at the time, told EFE.
The activist believes that in these 50 years David has been “revictimized.” “He has lived in fear of the police for all these years. At 63 he is very sick, jobless, destroyed and forgotten,” she lamented.
Removing this fact of police brutality from oblivion and that it be remembered “every year” as other atrocious events that occurred in the city are commemorated, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy, is the request of the director of the Human Rights Education program at Southern Methodist University, Rick Halperin.
The educator lamented that he has seen generations of students in Dallas arrive at the university without knowing who Santos Rodríguez is. “Our job is to remember Santos, not just today but for years to come to heal and learn from this tragedy,” he said.
Over the years, the efforts of organizers and activists have managed to establish the Santos Rodríguez Center in Pike Park, where a march will take place this Sunday.
On Monday the city plans to proclaim July 24 as “Santos Rodríguez Day.” There will be religious services and the projection of the documentary “Santos Vive”.
“It’s time to unite and make our tragedies visible, those of Latinos,” Duarte said.
