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Recalling Protest Over '73 Slaying: Dallas: After Police Killed 12-Year-Old, Thousands Took to Streets

Posted on: Sunday, 9 April 2006, 15:00 CDT

By Frank Trejo, The Dallas Morning News

Apr. 9--As he prepared this week to participate in today's "mega-march" for immigrant rights in Dallas, Justice of the Peace Luis Sepulveda found himself turning back to a tragic part of Dallas history.

Today's rally could bring tens of thousands to downtown, making it the largest civil rights protest in the city since 1973, after the killing of Santos Rodriguez. Mr. Sepulveda, who was 19 and a recent high school graduate at the time, joined that protest and plans to be in the crowd again today.

The circumstances were different 33 years ago, but in terms of passion and the potential for significant impact, the events of then and now can be compared, said several who were in Dallas at the time.

Santos was a 12-year-old Mexican-American burglary suspect who was shot and killed by a Dallas police officer as he sat handcuffed in a squad car just blocks from his home.

After the shooting, thousands of protesters -- estimates range from 2,000 to 10,000 -- marched through downtown venting their anger and frustration. Initially peaceful, the protest turned violent.

"There was an atmosphere of real sadness during that march," Mr. Sepulveda said. "People were depressed at not being able to do better for your families no matter how much you struggled, about not being able to get anywhere."

Former state Rep. Domingo Garcia, one of the organizers of today's march, called the 1973 protest a "galvanizing event for the Mexican-American community in Dallas."

"It did so much to raise the political awareness of the Latino community that was living here at the time," said Mr. Garcia, national civil rights chairman for the League of United Latin American Citizens.

A different place

In many ways, Dallas was a far different city in 1973. According to the 1970 census, Hispanics made up 8 percent of the city's population. Today that figure is closer to 42 percent.

Mr. Sepulveda recalled that as a young man, he seldom saw Hispanic police officers, teachers or television news people.

Much of the Hispanic community lived in what some called Little Mexico; residents simply called it el barrio. It was a modest collection of homes and businesses just north of downtown Dallas. Today, luxury hotels, office buildings and high-end condos cover the area.

Early on the morning of July 24, 1973, a soda machine outside a gas station in the neighborhood was burglarized. Three people were seen running from the site, a police officer thought he recognized two suspects as boys from the neighborhood, Santos and his 13-year-old brother, David Rodriguez.

Two officers rousted the boys from their nearby home, handcuffed them and took them to the gas station in their car. There, they were briefly questioned. One of the officers put a .357-caliber Magnum revolver to Santos' head as he sat in the front seat of the patrol car. The officer later said he thought he had removed the bullets from the gun.

The revolver clicked once, and then a second time. A bullet exploded from the barrel. Santos died in the squad car as his blood soaked his brother's feet.

Four days after the killing, thousands marched from the Kennedy Memorial toward City Hall, which was near Main and Harwood streets at the time.

Rene Martinez, now a Dallas school district administrator, was one of the organizers of the 1973 march. Mr. Martinez, who was 26 at the time, said that while a majority of the protesters were Hispanic, many black people and some whites also joined the march.

He noted that Darrell Cain, the officer who shot Santos, had been involved in the fatal shooting of a young black man three years earlier. A grand jury declined to indict him in that shooting, but he was tried in Santos' death.

Two marches

The 1973 protest was really the story of two marches, Mr. Martinez said. The first was orderly and peaceful. But as that one was breaking up, a second wave, made up mostly of angry, young Hispanic and black men, began to swarm through the streets.

A squad car was smashed, two police motorcycles were burned, and protesters hurled whatever they could through downtown store windows.

Mr. Martinez recalls seeing an elderly Hispanic woman walk up to the destroyed police car and begin hitting it with a rolled up newspaper.

"It was as if she was venting all her life's experiences in that one moment," he said.

Injuries, arrests

The violence left five Dallas police officers injured and 38 people arrested -- 23 Hispanics and 15 black people.

Officer Cain was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for murder. He served 2 ½ years. He has left the area, and has spoken about the shooting only once since 1973.

In a 1998 interview with The Dallas Morning News, Mr. Cain took full responsibility for Santos' death, but he denied racism was a factor.

"If this guy had been green, black or white, it would have happened," he said. "I would trade places with that boy any day of the week ... if I could go back to that point in time."

But many saw it as an extreme example of the bias faced by minorities in Dallas.

"It was a wake-up call for the city of Dallas," Mr. Martinez said. "Some important and dramatic changes did take place after that, from police training to recruiting and many other things."

Today's march, however, is likely to point up even more differences between then and now, said Jesse Diaz, another local LULAC official.

"I would say the majority of us were Mexican-Americans, [but] very few had actually come from Mexico," he said of the 1973 protesters. "I don't remember anybody carrying any Mexican flags or yelling, 'Viva Mexico!' All I remember is shouts of 'Chicano Power!'

"I think that was the first time that so many of us were in one place for one cause and we realized, 'Hey, there's enough of us here to make a difference.' "

But Cynthia Cordova isn't so sure the old march helped at all. Ms. Cordova, who was Santos' sister-in-law, remains a friend of the family.

"Nothing has ever really been done to remember Santos," Ms. Cordova said. "There's no monument or memorial." She said that Maria "Bessie" Rodriguez, Santos' mother, didn't get an apology or even a card from the city when it happened.

E-mail ftrejo@dallasnews.com

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Source: The Dallas Morning News

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