Does Texas Agent’s Excuse for Killing Immigrants Make Sense?
By Christopher Sherman, Huffington Post Latino Voices
Texas Department of Public Safety officials have said the helicopter crew believed the truck was carrying a covered drug load in the bed and a trooper aboard fired to stop it.
But after interviewing seven surviving undocumented immigrants, Alba Caceres, Guatemala’s consul in McAllen, said there was agreement that the helicopter was 450 to 600 feet away when the trooper inside fired in an attempt to disable the fleeing vehicle. She said the trooper should have been able to see the people inside.
“They all saw it (the helicopter),”Caceressaid. “All of them, including those riding up front because they were stuck against the window.”
Along with the driver, four passengers were riding in the cab – three of them crammed behind the front seat, she said. The other six passengers, including the two who were killed, were in the truck’s bed, covered with a sheet.
Cacereshad said Monday that her skepticism was building that a helicopter could fire on a vehicle without seeing people stuffed into the cabin and bed. “Neither you nor I believe it,” she said.
DPS spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger said Tuesday that the incident remains under investigation, but “according to our preliminary review and irrefutable evidence, the tarp did not blow off the back of the truck during the pursuit.”
She reiterated the agency’s earlier statement that the helicopter crew believed the tarp was covering a load of drugs when a trooper fired to disable the vehicle. She also said it’s rare for an officer to fire on a fleeing vehicle from a helicopter.
This article was first published in Huffington Post Latino Voices.
[Photo by Paul Garland]