#OTD in 1971 Mexican-origin people in the border city of Pharr endured a police riot, commonly called the Pharr Riots, that resulted in the killing of Alfonso Loredo Flores. To halt the “riot” the city government called in the Texas Rangers, among other police agencies. Pharr had seen many instances of police violence, including in […]
#OTD on February 7, 1919, the seventh day of the Joint Committee of the Senate and the House in the Investigation of the Texas State Ranger Force (hereafter, “Canales Hearings”) took place in the Texas state capitol. On this day, more evidence was introduced of Ranger violence against both Mexicans and Anglos, and its political
#OTD on February 8, 1919, the eighth day of the Joint Committee of the Senate and the House in the Investigation of the Texas State Ranger Force (hereafter, “Canales Hearings”) took place in the Texas state capitol. The day’s testimony and discussion show the wide scope of Ranger violence and the ways in which
#OTD on February 10, 1919, the ninth day of the Joint Committee of the Senate and the House in the Investigation of the Texas State Ranger Force (hereafter, “Canales Hearings”) took place in the Texas state capitol. The first matter taken up was a procedural issue, but one that had enduring consequences. The House voted
#OTD on February 11, 1919, the tenth day of the Joint Committee of the Senate and the House in the Investigation of the Texas State Ranger Force (hereafter, “Canales Hearings”) took place in the Texas state capitol. The day’s hearings brought out little new information about specific incidents, but the discussion of 1915-18 border violence
#OTD on February 12, 1919, the eleventh day of the Joint Committee of the Senate and the House in the Investigation of the Texas State Ranger Force (hereafter, “Canales Hearings”) took place in the Texas state capitol. The day saw no dramatic new developments, though repeated mentions of the packed hearing room and the large
#OTD on February 13, 1919, the final day of the Joint Committee of the Senate and the House in the Investigation of the Texas State Ranger Force (hereafter, “Canales Hearings”) took place in the Railroad Commission Hearing Room on the 2nd floor of the state capitol. Todays’ thread summarizes both this day’s testimony, and
#OTD in 1896, Texas governor Charles Culberson sent Texas Rangers to El Paso to prevent the Peter Maher-Bob Fitzsimmons prizefight for violating the state’s anti-prizefighting legislation. Their failure to do so shows how entrepreneurs could use the border to defy the law. The Rangers were met with hostile resistance from the city’s residents, mayor, and
In the Spring of 1848, William “Big Foot” Wallace led 30 Texas Rangers on a raid on an unsuspecting Lipan Apache camp in the Medina River Valley. There was documentation of other bands of Lipan Apache and Comanche attacking Anglo surveyors in the area, who were entering Native land to illegally partition it for sale.
#OTD in 1970, the Texas Civil Rights Advisory Committee called for the abolition of the Texas Rangers. https://www.nytimes.com/1970/03/10/archives/civil-rights-unit-would-disband-texas-rangers-advisory-group-says.html The Committee was an advisory arm of the United States Civil Rights Commission, which was created by the Civil Rights Act of 1957 as an independent, bipartisan federal agency whose mission is “to inform the development of
