#OTD in 1915, Adolfo Muñoz was tortured, riddled with bullets, and hung from a mesquite tree two miles south of San Benito after mysteriously disappearing from the custody of deputy sheriff Frank Carr and former and future Ranger Daniel Hinojosa.
TSHA Handbook entry on Daniel Hinojosa.
Muñoz, whose names are given as “Rudolfo” or “Muñiz” in some sources, had been arrested under suspicion of robbery, and there were also rumors that he had attempted to rape a young girl.
Hinojosa and Carr, as they later admitted, removed Muñoz from San Benito’s jail at 10:00 that evening, with the stated purpose of taking him to the Cameron County jail in Brownsville, 22 miles away. They claimed armed masked men stopped them on the road and seized Muñoz.
Canales Hearings, p. 27-8
The next day, travelers on the San Benito-Brownsville road saw his mutilated corpse hanging from a tree. Local authorities did not seek to identify the assailants, or to hold Carr and Hinojosa accountable for their dereliction of duty.
In 1918 Hinojosa rejoined the Ranger Force, serving until his dismissal in February 1919 as Canales went public with his charges against the force. Hinojosa has been featured in @txrangermuseum displays honoring Hispanic Rangers, with no mention of his misdeeds.
During hearings about the Rangers four years later, Rep. J.T. Canales cited Muñoz’s killing as an example of egregious Ranger conduct, and alleged that Hinojosa acted “in concert with certain citizens, among them some leading citizens not only of San Benito but of Harlingen.”
Canales also argued that after this incident, “every person who was charged with crime refused to be arrested, because they did not believe that the officers of the law would give them the protection guaranteed to them by the Constitution and the laws of this State.”
Moreover, Muñoz’ murder was endorsed by local Anglo leaders; the Lyford Courant endorsed the killing, arguing that “Lynch law is never a pleasant thing to contemplate, but it is not to be denied that it is sometimes the only means of administering justice.”
“the greatest danger immediately,” wrote a S. Texas Justice Department source to his supervisor in Washington, D.C. several weeks later, “is in controlling ourselves.” The worse of the violence of the 1910s would soon descend on the valley.
In October of 2017, a state historical marker commemorating the victims of La Matanza, petitioned for by @Refusing2Forget, was placed near the site of Muñoz’ murder, referenced in @BenjaminHJohns1′s speech.
Information for this thread comes from Revolution in Texas and The Injustice Never Leaves You and https://www.lynchingintexas.org/items/show/354.
