The yellowed newspaper stories of July 1973 in the old green scrapbook pass through the weathered hands of Bessie Rodriguez like dry leaves. They bring back memories of her second son, 12-year-old Santos Rodriguez, who was shot and killed Russian roulette-style by a Dallas police officer.
“He was cuffed,” the 69-year-old said in a steady, direct tone. “They didn’t give him a break. You know, he couldn’t defend his life.”
The mortal wound to Santos endures in the Mexican-American community. For many, the murder was like the taking of a child or a brother. The killing of a boy by a police officer also shocked the entire city and remains in its consciousness 40 years later.
Several groups are determined the murder of Santos will not be forgotten, just as others pour their energies into remembering the assassination of President John F. Kennedy 50 years ago. A series of events are planned to remember the boy.
Minority leaders considered Santos’ murder the worst act of police brutality in Dallas history. But it also inspired advocacy that led to political representation and job opportunities.
At the time of the shooting, there was one Mexican-American on the Dallas City Council. Although for almost a decade the council had three Hispanic members, in June, the number dropped to two. That opened a debate about how far the city has come, considering Latinos make up 42 percent of the city.
The racial and ethnic makeup of the Police Department, however, has changed dramatically, as have police rules.
Pictures of Santos
Sorrow shrivels; wounds heal, they say. Rodriguez rejects the clichés.
While others in Dallas easily talk about how the murder of the muchachito galvanized class and race factions, brought police oversight and grew leadership, Santos' mother finds little consolation from what happened after the death of her son.
“I guess God needed some helpers up there, instead of me,” she said.
Rodriguez still lives in her hometown of Dallas, but away from the old Little Mexico neighborhood on the fringes of downtown where the murder occurred.
Her small living room functions as a shrine to Santos. A pastel crayon portrait of him at age 9 dominates one wall. Photos capture him even younger, wearing a straw Fedora, with his brother David. In one of the last photos of Santos, a trim 12-year-old leans against a sleek orange car.
Underneath the photos is a framed letter from President Jimmy Carter.
“The brutality and senselessness of the murder is reprehensible,” Carter wrote to Rodriguez on White House stationery turned amber with age. “I hope some measure of justice has been served by the vigorous state prosecution and the officer’s conviction of murder with malice. In the end, I realize no action could ever compensate for the needless loss of life.”
The letter underscored the Justice Department’s refusal in 1978 to prosecute Dallas police Officer Darrell L. Cain under federal civil rights statutes after the officer had already been tried in state court.
During trial, Cain said the shooting was an accident. The Rodriguez brothers were suspected of burglarizing a vending machine at Chuck’s Fina Station at 2301 Cedar Springs Road. Testimony showed the boys’ fingerprints didn’t match any at the scene.
Cain admitted using a .357 Magnum during an interrogation in his police car where Santos and his 13-year-old brother, David, sat handcuffed.
The jury convicted Cain of murder with malice, the stiffest charge of the Texas penal code at that time. The sentence: five years.
Brother’s memories
David Rodriguez, now 53, tells the 40-year-old tale the same way he testified of the horror at Cain’s trial. He and his brother were pulled from their beds at the home of their foster grandfather, 80-year-old widower Carlos Miñez.
The boys were placed in handcuffs and weren’t allowed to put on shoes, testimony showed.
Their mother, 29 at the time, was in prison for killing her 62-year-old boyfriend.
The Rodriguez brothers were taken back to the gas station on Cedar Springs for questioning in the squad car. Cain sat in the backseat with David. Another officer sat in the front with Santos.
“They were trying to force us to say that we burglarized a Coke machine out of $8,” David Rodriguez said. “We had nothing to do with that that night. He was mostly questioning my brother. When he wasn’t getting the answers he wanted, that is when he pulled out his gun. He opened the cylinder with me right next to him. I couldn’t really tell if he was emptying it or filling it. He put the gun up to his [Santos’] head. He said, ‘Now you are going to tell him the truth.’”
Cain clicked the pistol once.
Nothing happened.
The officer then told Santos there was another bullet in the revolver.
Cain, according to testimony, said Santos’ last words were: “I am telling the truth.”
The next shot pierced Santos’ skull. The squad car filled with the light of the gunfire. The two officers jumped out. More officers arrived. Cain’s weapon was taken. At his trial, his defense contended that the officer had believed his gun to be empty.
An officer who was outside the patrol car testified that Cain jumped out of the car after the shooting and said, “My God, my God, what have I done; I didn’t mean to do it,” according to Cain’s appeal of the verdict.
Meanwhile, David sat in the car.
“You are going to be all right,” he remembers telling Santos. His brother didn’t respond.
Blood pooled on the car floor.
“The next thing my feet were all wet with warm liquid.”
Wary of police
The death of Santos rippled quickly through the Little Mexico neighborhood.
Even before then, Sol Villasana remembers a childhood in which Mexican-Americans had been wary of the police.
“There was constant harassment and stories of people being taken to the Trinity River bottom,” said Villasana, a Dallas attorney who was 20 when Santos was killed in his neighborhood. “Cops harassed my dad and me, too.”
Villasana said he was never beaten, though.
Hilda Ramirez Duarte was 16 when the shooting happened. Her parents, Salvador and Esther Ramirez, were well-respected in Little Mexico for their work with children and teens. When Santos was killed, the family home on Cole Avenue buzzed with phone calls and visits.
Betrayal sank deep.
“You grow up believing the police are there to help you,” Duarte said. “When I walked down the street and saw a police car, it wasn’t the same feeling.”
Four days after the shooting, many gathered at Pike Park in Little Mexico for a march downtown to the police station. A small riot broke out.
Today, 78-year-old Esther Ramirez, mother of six and grandmother of 22, said, “I’m still furious. It could have been one of my kids.”
Santos’ mother
Bessie Rodriguez was raised in Little Mexico by foster parents. As a teenager, she was headstrong, she admits. Elvis Presley was the rage. Rodriguez, who loved to dance, loved two Elvis songs best: “Playing for Keeps” and “Don’t Be Cruel.”
She married at 14 to David Rodriguez, a Mexican immigrant. Two weeks before her 15th birthday, she gave birth to David Jr. A year later, her second son was born near All Saints Day. She named him Santos.
The marriage didn’t last.
She dated a man more than three decades older. He abused her, she said. One night, they struggled over a gun. He was killed. Rodriguez was convicted of murder with malice and sent to prison for five years.
Surrounded by family photos, rosaries, images of a crucified Jesus and dozens of stuffed animals, Rodriguez said that after leaving prison she struggled with her son’s murder. A scar in the middle of her forearm, she said, was a suicide attempt. Her pain deepened when she worked in the laundry at Crescent Court — across the street from where her son lost his life.
“I even had nightmares,” the mother said. “It was so close.”
Santos loved Santana, enchiladas and hot dogs, but most of all, his mama, Rodriguez said.
“He would have protected me,” she said.
Police practices today
At the Dallas Police Department today, almost half of the 3,485 sworn officers are minorities.
Forty years ago, minority officers made up less than 20 percent and possibly only 15 percent of the force, said interim First Assistant Chief Cynthia Villarreal, the second highest ranking officer in a police force led by Chief David O. Brown, who is black.
Villarreal and Brown are striking examples of change, but many more are coming up the ranks. Half of all sergeants are minorities.
Police rules also have changed dramatically in 40 years, Villarreal said.
“There are a lot of controls placed because of practices of the past,” she said.
For example, questioning of juveniles now requires a magistrate judge’s approval.
Since 1988, the city has had a Dallas Citizens Police Review Board for independent oversight. But some complain it lacks teeth because it can only make recommendations.
“Its value is that it gives citizens a platform to be able to speak to our council representatives to actually say they didn’t get due process,” Villarreal said. “It helps in our checks and balances.”
‘Justicia’ exhibit
Last week, with her short hair dyed golden brown and her rounded figure tucked in slacks and a “Soccer Mom” T-shirt, Rodriguez walked into a packed opening exhibit to Dallas civil rights history called “Justicia” at the Latino Cultural Center.
The exhibit chronicles a century of segregation and struggles, but the most forceful story was of the murder of a 12-year-old boy.
Her boy.
Within seconds, she was recognized. Several persons wanted pictures with Rodriguez. Though she walks with a limp because of back surgeries, she accommodated.
“I ain’t no celebrity,” she told one person.
When she saw the large photo of Santos, she appeared dazed. He looked down from the poster with a toothy smile and a mop of curly hair.
Someone stumbled out awkward condolences.
“I’m so sorry for your loss. What a sorrow, but you have healed?”
“I haven’t gotten over it,” she replied.
Others — including a new generation of 12-year-old Latino boys — looked up at Santos’ photo, too. Chris Arredondo explained the concept of Russian roulette to his son, Jesse Arredondo.
“The cop must have been crazy,” the boy said.
“It was a different time, son.”
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AT A GLANCE: ANNIVERSARY EVENTS
Several events will be held to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the murder of Santos Rodriguez
Wednesday
10 a.m.: Memorial at Oakland Cemetery, 3900 Oakland Circle
6 p.m.: Panel discussion on Santos Rodriguez, Latino Cultural Center, 2600 Live Oak St.
Saturday
6:30 p.m., Memorial at Pike Park, 2851 Harry Hines Blvd.
November
Teatro Dallas will dedicate its Day of the Dead productions to Santos Rodriguez. The theater company staged a play on his death 20 years ago.
