On May 15, 2004, Kirby Warnock released his film “Border Bandits,” which juxtaposed the myth of the Rangers with the murder of Antonio Longoria and Jesus Bazán in 1915, bringing knowledge about Ranger crimes passed down in families out to the wider public. Kirby Warnock learned of the double murder of Bazan and Longoria by […]
On this day in 1917, four men arrested Thomas Hickey, editor of the socialist, anti-war newspaper The Rebel, claiming without evidence that he was part of an armed anti-conscription conspiracy. The group’s leader, Montgomery, identified himself as a Ranger. Other newspapers confirm that this was John Montgomery, a Special Ranger active from June 1916 to
On May 20, 1974, the US Supreme Court decided against the Texas Rangers in Allee v Medrano, upholding a lower court’s ruling that the Rangers injured strikers constitutional rights during the 1966-1967 Starr County melon strikes. In the 1960s Tejano farmworkers in Starr County, Texas, worked in terrible conditions for wages as low as $0.50/hour.
On this day in 1916, José Morin and Victoriano Ponce disappeared while in the custody of Ranger Captain J.J. Sanders. The men were suspected of attacks against U.S. citizens, but neither had been tried for the crimes or even formally accused of anything. Newspapers later reported that the men were shot while trying to escape
Disappearances of José Morin and Victoriano Ponce Read More »
#OTD on May 26, 1967, Texas Rangers under the command of A.Y. Allee attacked civil and labor rights activist Francisco “Pancho” Medrano in Edinburg, Texas. Medrano was a well respected and well liked labor and civil rights leader in Texas. Medrano, an official with the United Auto Workers, had been sent by UAW leadership to
#OTD in 1800 Texas Ranger Lt. Thomas I. Smith was born in Virginia. Along with Ranger Captain Samuel Highsmith, Smith attacked and killed a number of peaceful Caddo and Wichita people in spring 1848, including children and young adults. By 1848 US land surveyors and settlers were entering the Brazos River area in increasing numbers,
#OTD on June 2, 1967 Texas Ranger Captain A. Y. Allee and others brutally beat farmworker activists Magdaleno Dimas and Benito Rodriguez, in an incident that shows the extent of Ranger violence against Mexican American labor and CR activism. Allee, as has been noted in other RTF #OTD tweets, had a long track record of
#OTD on June 9-10, 1969, the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor met in Washington DC to examine labor abuses on migrant workers. The post meeting report, “Migrant and Seasonal Worker Powerlessness” exposed Ranger abuse of striking workers in Starr County. The meetings and report focused on the southwest and esp Texas. One of the first to
#OTD under the direction of Leander Harvey McNelly, a group of Texas Rangers attacked Mexican men moving cattle ten miles north of the Rio Grande who were supposedly herding cattle stolen from white ranchers. 12 of the Mexican men were killed, of somewhere between 12 and 14 total, and their bodies were publicly displayed in
#OTD on June 12, 1901 Gregorio Cortéz killed 2 Texas law officers in self-defense and led Texas Rangers on a nearly 10 day chase through south central Texas. Cortez was regarded as a “bandit” by the law but became a hero to many Mexican Americans. Cortéz was born in Mexico and moved to Texas in
