On March 29, 2019 the film The Highwaymen premiered on Netflix. The film dramatizes Texas Rangers Frank Hamer and Maney Gault’s hunt for Bonnie and Clyde. The film celebrates the Ranger’s seemingly unique ability to “take down” dangerous criminals. Bonnie Parker, Clyde Barrow, and their gang robbed banks and stores and killed at least nine […]
#OTD in 1881 the Texas Rangers crossed the border into Mexico to illegally apprehend Onofrio Baca on a charge of murder. They delivered Baca to authorities in New Mexico. He was lynched shortly thereafter. The story began with the murder of Anthony M. Conklin, edited of the Socorro Sun, in Socorro, NM in December 1880.
#OTD in 1963, Texas Gov. John Connally dispatched Ranger Captain Alfred Young “A. Y.” Allee to Crystal City. Connally did so to “keep the peace” during the local election cycle for city and county offices. Instead Allee would go on to brutalize several Mexican Americans. Allee had a bad reputation among Mexican people, who called
#OTD in 1918, Florencio García was arrested by Texas Rangers Sadler, Sittre, and Lock at a ranch south of Brownsville. He was never seen alive again. A death certificate was issued and the Rangers were charged with murder. The body of García, a 25 year old cattle herder born in Tamaulipas, was found after his
#OTD on April 7, 1965, two Texas Rangers patrolled Mathis, Texas, during a contested election in which a slate of several Mexican American candidates and a dissident Anglo, calling themselves the Action Party, challenged longstanding Anglo political power. Mexican American voters swept the Action Party to office, but only after a campaign of intimidation aimed
On this day in 1972, the Texas Rangers baseball team played their first official game on Opening Day of the 1972 MLB season. The Rangers, formerly the Washington D.C. Senators, had moved to Texas the fall before. The team’s new name was in honor of the Texas Rangers law enforcement agency. Domingo Garcia, a former
Opening Day of the Texas Rangers’ First MLB Season Read More »
On this day in 1955, Texas Ranger Robert A. “Bob” Crowder negotiated an end to a revolt at the Rusk State Hospital for the ‘criminally insane’ in Rusk, TX. Black inmates took over the segregated Black ward, beat attendants, and took hostages in anger over terrible conditions. The hospital was a former prison and a
Earl R. Pearson became the first #BlackChief of the Texas Rangers in April 2004. He rose to the highest rank of the Rangers at a time when 63% of the organization as white, 24% was Latinx & only 12% was Black & Indigenous. At his appointment, he voiced that he “wanted the state’s police force
In late April, 1970, Texas Rangers appeared in Uvalde, pointing rifles at students who walked out of school in protest at discrimination. This thread explores the Ranger’s role in the Anglo establishment’s effort to stop this protest. Beginning on April 14, 1970, 600+ students participated in a walkout to protest the inequality of educational resources,
#OTD on May 3, 1909 Ranger Levi Davis killed Severo Lopez in Rio Grande City. Lopez and several friends had been enjoying a festive dinner when Davis and 2 other Rangers ended the festivities with gunfire. Ranger authorities had augmented the Ranger presence in the Valley after the murder of Judge Stanley Welch in 1906.
