The New York Times - USA (2020-10-25)

THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALSUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2020 0 N 21

EDINBURG, Texas — Officer
Coltynn Williams was the first
person at the Hidalgo County Jail
to actually see Jorge Gonzalez Zu-
niga.
When he clocked in for his
graveyard shift on Easter Sunday,
Mr. Gonzalez was still in the drunk
tank, 20 hours after his arrest.
Mr. Gonzalez, an undocument-
ed farmworker from Mexico, had
been arrested at a party the day
before for public intoxication and
violating the curfew imposed
across parts of the Rio Grande
Valley to help control the wid-
ening coronavirus pandemic.
Now, he lay motionless on the
detox cell’s concrete floor, his
bagged lunch untouched.
Mr. Williams asked him if he felt
OK.
“My neck hurts,” he replied.
When he was unable to hold his
head up for a mug shot, Mr.
Williams sent him to the hospital,
where doctors diagnosed a
crushed vertebra and a body tem-
perature of 82.4 degrees. He spent
the next several weeks on a venti-
lator and died on July 15.
In their report on the investiga-
tion, a partial copy of which was
obtained by The New York Times,
the Texas Rangers found evidence
of brutal treatment during Mr.
Gonzalez’s arrest, during which
witnesses said he was Tased,
tripped, punched and knelt on be-
fore being pushed chest-first into
a patrol car.
On Aug. 20, the Hidalgo County
District Attorney’s Office sought
manslaughter charges against the
three deputies who conducted the
arrest, but the grand jury came
back with a decision on the same
day: no charges.
The case has sent shock waves
through the Rio Grande Valley, a
place that has dealt with corrup-
tion and brutality in law enforce-
ment in the past, but where pro-
tests of the kind that rattled the
country after the killing of George
Floyd in Minneapolis are rare.
More than 142,000 undocu-
mented immigrants live in the val-
ley, many of whom fear detection
and deportation much more than
mistreatment by the police, espe-
cially those who came from coun-
tries where government power is
routinely wielded with violence.
People outside the valley are
largely unaware of what life is like
for those who live in the shadows
along the border, said Katia Gon-
zalez, who is Mr. Gonzalez’s sister.
“My brother had to die for peo-
ple down here to know,” she said.

Down in the Valley

Ms. Gonzalez said that Mr. Gon-
zalez, 23, had cried when he
watched a video of Mr. Floyd’s
death. What happened to George
Floyd had happened to him, he
told her in May, a little more than a
month before he died. A week lat-
er, Black Lives Matters protesters
marched in downtown McAllen, a
rare display of solidarity in sup-
port of the small Black population
in the Rio Grande Valley.
Daniel Peña, a McAllen resi-
dent, was having none of it. Cap-
tured in a viral video, he could be
seen chasing the protesters away
from his house with a chain saw,
yelling racial slurs over the fright-
ening buzz. “Go home,” he yelled.
“Don’t let them lie to you. This is
the valley!”
The Hidalgo County jail is in ru-
ral Edinburg, where horses graze
in front yards and tinfoil is placed
on windows to cool mobile homes
against the intense sun.
In 2008, when Mr. Gonzalez was
11 years old, he and his sister, then
9, fled the corruption and gang vi-
olence in Tamaulipas, Mexico.
They joined their father, already
living north of the border, and
soon after, their mother reunited
with the family in Texas.
After graduating from a local
high school, Mr. Gonzalez har-
vested cabbage and watermelons
from the rich soil to support his
wife and 1-year-old son, Jason.
In March, as the coronavirus
pandemic spread in South Texas,
the authorities feared that the tra-

ditional family gatherings that are

a feature of spring and summer in

the valley would help fuel the out-

break and overwhelm hospitals.

Sheriff J.E. Guerra made it clear

that his deputies would be out to

enforce a countywide curfew over

the Easter weekend.

“The objective of this order is

for people to stay away from each

other,” he said. “So I know that it’s

very difficult, especially in our cul-

ture, because during the most ho-

liest of all holidays, families all

want to be together.”

‘I’m Not Breathing’

On Saturday, April 11, Mr. Gon-

zalez, dressed in a pink shirt and

camouflage pants, went with his

wife to a friend’s cookout at the

Delta Lake RV Park, three miles

from the high school where he had

graduated. The couple needed a

night out. They were tired of iso-

lating at home because of the pan-

demic.

Mr. Gonzalez drank a dozen

beers, he later told an investiga-

tor, then passed out on the ground.

His wife found a spot in one of the

trailer homes to sleep. Other cook-

outs continued into the night.

Lucio Duque, the park’s land-

lord, said he got a call from a

neighbor shortly before 2 a.m.,

saying some of the tenants were

fighting. So he walked the short

distance to the mobile homes and

confronted the partyers.

Three Hidalgo County sheriff’s

officers — Sgt. Julio Treviño and

two deputies, Steven Farias and

Jorge Cabrera — arrived after the

neighbor called 911.

The deputies found Mr. Gonza-

lez and nudged him awake, ac-

cording to the Texas Rangers’ re-

port. At first, they ordered Mr.

Gonzalez to go sleep inside a

trailer, but Sergeant Treviño de-

cided to arrest him after Mr.

Duque said he did not live on the

property.

Mr. Gonzalez later told his sis-

ter that he had been scared, so he

ran — perhaps, she said, because

he knew that the Sheriff’s Office

cooperated with Immigration and

Customs Enforcement.

The deputies tackled him. Mr.

Duque said in an interview that

Mr. Gonzalez, who was 6-foot-

and 235 pounds, had run but did

not fight back as the officers

cuffed him.

“He just didn’t want to be ar-

rested,” he said.

Jesus Reyes, a tenant, said he

saw “one deputy pick up Jorge’s

hands from the back, another

tripped him and the third looked

like he punched or pulled Jorge’s

head.”

Mr. Reyes said Mr. Gonzalez fell

to the ground headfirst and ap-

peared to be unconscious after

that, but then Mr. Reyes heard the

sound of a Taser and heard Mr.

Gonzalez shriek.

At that point, another witness

told the Texas Rangers, the depu-

ties walked a handcuffed and

shackled Mr. Gonzalez to the pa-

trol cars, but when they reached

the cars, Mr. Gonzalez fell to the

ground again. Then the witness

saw a deputy kneel on Mr. Gonza-

lez’s back, and a second deputy

kneel on his neck.

In a dashcam video from inside

a patrol car, according to the in-

vestigator, Deputy Cabrera could

be seen pulling Mr. Gonzalez

chest-first onto the back seat, he

said. Mr. Gonzalez kept saying

that the deputies had “paralyzed”

him. “I’m not breathing,” he said,

using words similar to those Mr.

Floyd had used during his arrest.

“Pick me up.”

Red Flags Missed

The deputies used their radios

to warn officers at the jail that a

“rowdy” prisoner was inbound.

Once they arrived, Mr. Gonza-

lez would not, or could not, stand

on his own, and four officers had to

carry him from the patrol car to a

pat-down room, according to the

investigation report.

Sgt. Cynthia Casanova, the offi-

cer in charge of booking that

night, told investigators that she

viewed Mr. Gonzalez’s refusal to

stand and walk as “uncoopera-

tive” but not violent. Still, she or-

dered officers to strap Mr. Gonza-

lez down in a restraint chair as

punishment despite him saying

that he was hurt.

A nurse cleared Mr. Gonzalez

for detention.

After five hours in the chair,

guards wheeled Mr. Gonzalez into

a shower. One officer reported Mr.

Gonzalez saying he could not

move. The jailers dressed him in

an orange uniform and left him in

Detox Cell 3.

He remained there all day until

Mr. Williams, a trained medic, ar-

rived for his shift and discovered

Mr. Gonzalez’s injuries.

The Hidalgo County Sheriff’s

Office referred questions on the

case to the county’s lawyer, who

said he had advised the depart-

ment not to discuss it because of a

pending lawsuit and an internal

investigation.

Family Seeks Justice

“My nephew was a fun, outgo-

ing person, and they took his life

away,” Danielle Gonzalez, Mr.

Gonzalez’s aunt, said. “All we

want are answers.”

Because he had no health insur-

ance and could not be put in a

skilled care center, she and her

husband took Mr. Gonzalez into

their home after he left the hospi-

tal, paralyzed from the neck down

and unable to breathe on his own.

The family struggled to keep him

alive.

“We only had two weeks to

learn how to care for my brother

before the hospital sent him to us,”

Katia Gonzalez said. “I was

scared. The ventilator is so deli-

cate to work with.”

On July 8, the family said, Mr.

Gonzalez seemed agitated. His

eyes rolled up, and his belly con-

vulsed. They called 911. The emer-

gency medical technicians said he

had had a heart attack, and they

asked the family to leave the room

so they could try to revive him.

But by then, she said, his brain

had gone too long without oxygen.

He died a week later.

“My mom went to the Sheriff’s

and told them, ‘Tell your sheriff to

come to apologize to my son be-

fore he passes away,’” Katia Gon-

zalez said.

The sheriff, she said, never re-

sponded.

After the grand jury declined to

return an indictment, the family

filed a lawsuit against the county

and four Sheriff’s Office employ-

ees, seeking damages for wrong-

ful death and negligence.

Katia Gonzalez began a social

media campaign to bring atten-

tion to her brother’s death. Mr.

Gonzalez’s mug shot and story cir-

culated on Twitter, garnering hun-

dreds of comments and tens of

thousands of retweets. After the

grand jury did not return an in-

dictment, activists with La Unión

del Pueblo Entro helped organize

a march at the District Attorney’s

Office in downtown Edinburg.

Passing drivers honked their

horns in support.

Mr. Duque, the landlord, did not

attend the protest and, like most of

those who were there that night,

has not openly criticized the po-

lice. Still, he said, he was dis-

turbed by what he saw. “There

was no need for the police to come

and get out of control,” he said.

Death After Violent Arrest Incites Rare Protests in Rio Grande Valley

An altar for Jorge Gonzalez Zuniga at his family’s home. Witnesses said Mr. Gonzalez was Tased, tripped, punched and knelt on during his arrest in Texas.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY VERÓNICA G. CÁRDENAS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

From left, Mr. Gonzalez’s sister, Katia; his mother, Catalina Zuniga; his son, Jason; his wife, Jo-

hana; and his aunt Danielle Gonzalez, outside her home in Texas, where he spent his final days.

By JAMES DOBBINS

WASHINGTON — Senator Lisa
Murkowski, the Alaska Republi-
can who has vocally opposed fill-
ing the vacant seat on the Su-
preme Court so close to an elec-
tion, said on Saturday that she
would nonetheless vote to confirm
Judge Amy Coney Barrett next
week.
“While I oppose the process
that has led us to this point,” Ms.
Murkowski said in a speech on the
Senate floor, “I do not hold it
against her as an individual who
has navigated the gauntlet with
grace, skill and humility.”
Her unexpected turnabout gave
a boost to Senate Republicans
looking to quiet intraparty dissent
in the face of unified Democratic
opposition. They already had the
votes they needed to confirm
Judge Barrett, President Trump’s
third Supreme Court nominee, but
Ms. Murkowski’s support means
that only one Republican — Sena-
tor Susan Collins of Maine — is
likely to defect when the roll is

called on Monday.

The development came as a di-

vided Senate slogged through an-

other day of debate over Judge

Barrett, 48, an appeals court judge

whose confirmation would lock in

a 6-to-3 conservative majority on

the court. Democrats again

turned to parliamentary tactics to

draw out the process and needle

Republicans for confirming a jus-

tice so close to Election Day.

Amid the scripted partisan the-

atrics, Ms. Murkowski’s 16-

minute speech stood out as a rare

moment of suspense. An icono-

clast willing to occasionally buck

her party, Ms. Murkowski had

been one of the lone voices in her

party joining Democrats last

month to push back against the

decision to quickly fill the vacancy

created by the death of Justice

Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Ms. Murkowski repeated those

concerns on Saturday, warning

that the rush by her fellow Repub-

licans to fill the seat would “re-

inforce the public perception

about political influence on the

court.” She lamented decades of

partisan escalation in the Senate

over judicial nominations.

“Moving forward on a nominee

just over a week removed from a

pitched presidential election

when partisan tensions are run-

ning about as high as they could —

I don’t think that this will help our

country become a better version

of itself,” she said.

Ms. Murkowski said she would

still join Democrats in trying to fil-

ibuster the nomination on Sunday.

But after meeting with Judge

Barrett in recent days, Ms.

Murkowski said she came away

impressed and concluded she was

unwilling to punish a qualified

nominee because her party in-

sisted on moving ahead.

“Frankly,” she added, “I lost

that procedural fight.”

Ms. Murkowski, who is up for

re-election in Alaska in 2022, has

frequently broken with Republi-

cans on significant votes in the

last four years. She was the only

member of her party in 2018 to op-

pose Mr. Trump’s last nominee to

the Supreme Court, Justice Brett

M. Kavanaugh, earning her the

vitriol of the president and some

of his staunchest supporters.

Like Ms. Collins, Ms.

Murkowski voted against repeal-

ing the Affordable Care Act and is

a proponent of abortion rights.

With her latest decision, Ms.

Murkowski now risks stirring up a

backlash from the left, which be-

lieves Judge Barrett’s confirma-

tion threatens those very issues.

It could be forceful. After Ms.

Collins supported Justice Kava-

naugh’s confirmation in 2018, she

became the top target of liberals

across the country, who poured

millions of dollars into her Demo-

cratic opponents’ coffers. Two

years later, polls suggest she

could lose re-election next month

thanks, in large part, to that vote.

The comparison to Ms. Collins

is not a perfect one, though. The

fight over Justice Kavanaugh was

a bitter affair that consumed the

nation in a debate over general

and sexual violence after he was

accused during the proceedings of

sexual assault. In this case,

polling suggests a majority of the

public, including many Demo-

crats, support confirming Judge

Barrett. What’s more, Alaska

tends to be a more conservative

state than Maine, and Ms.

Murkowski is so well known that

she won a write-in campaign in

2010 after losing the Republican

primary.

Ilyse Hogue, president of

NARAL Pro-Choice America, said

the group was “deeply disap-

pointed” by Ms. Murkowski’s in-

tended vote in support of Judge

Barrett.

“Her extreme views should be

disqualifying for anyone who

claims to be a champion for wom-

en and families,” Ms. Hogue said.

Ms. Murkowski made only

glancing comments to abortion

rights or the Affordable Care Act

during her floor speech, but they

suggested she had been re-

assured by Judge Barrett about

how the two issues would fare by

the nation’s highest court in the fu-

ture. She dodged reporters in the

Capitol after the speech.

“It was important for me to hear

and to better understand her

views on precedence and her eval-

uation process, specifically the

weight that she affords reliance on

decisions that have been in place

for decades, such as Roe v. Wade,”

she said in her remarks.

She said she also discussed with

the nominee the issue of “sever-

ability,” a legal doctrine that could

lead to the preservation of the Af-

fordable Care Act when the Su-

preme Court hears a challenge

seeking to invalidate it just after

the election.

Murkowski, in a Turnabout, Says She Will Join G.O.P. Senators to Confirm Barrett

Opposed to a rush to

fill a Supreme Court

seat, yet impressed

with the nominee.

By NICHOLAS FANDOS

.