Posted on 06/20/2007 1:54:44 PM PDT by traumer
Vehicle's passenger was beaten to death by several men, police say. AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
A group of men fatally beat a passenger in a car that police said accidentally struck a child outside an East Austin apartment complex, police said today.
As many as 3,000 people were in the area following a Juneteenth celebration at the time, officials said. Austin police Cmdr. Harold Piatt estimated that dozens were in the parking lot of the Booker T. Washington apartment complex at the time and that preliminary information shows no witnesses apparently tried to prevent or stop the attack.
"At this point, we aren't aware that any person did anything to stop the assault or prevent the injuries," he said.
Piatt said investigators are still trying to question people who might have seen the attack.
Police said officers responded to a "person down" call at 9:30 p.m. and that when they arrived, they found David Rivas Morales, 40, with trauma to his body. He was taken to Brackenridge Hospital and pronounced dead.
Investigators said the assault apparently occurred after the driver of the car struck a child in a parking lot at 900 Thompson St. The child, a 3-year-old boy, was treated for injuries that were not life-threatening.
Witnesses told investigators that a group of men assaulted Morales when he stepped out of the car to try to stop the crowd from assaulting the driver, who had gotten out of the car. Piatt said it was unclear if the driver was aware he'd struck the child.
The driver, whose name has not been released, was able to leave the area in the car. Police later found him and the car.
"This is an anomaly for Austin, Piatt said. "When you have someone just beaten to death in a parking lot."
Morales' sister, Margaret Morales, who lives in an apartment complex where the incident happened, said her brother was riding home with a man she knew only as "Victor" from a painting job. She said a child came to her door shortly after the incident and told her what happened.
Morales said that when she showed up at the scene, she found her brother bleeding from the head.
"He was a loving, caring man," Margaret Morales said as she fought back tears while standing on her porch. "I don't know why anyone would want to do this; I can't imagine him gone out of our lives forever."
Anyone with information is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 477-3588.
"We know we had a number of folks who saw something," Piatt said. "Hopefully there are some good Samaritans who are as upset about we are about what happened."
tplohetski@statesman.com; 445-3605
There has been a slowly simmering race war between those two races in Southern California since the sixties.
It would dominate the news for weeks; the "national examination" (spearheaded by the guilt-ridden, self-despising leftist media) would be nauseating.
I hate crime too, but this is kinda funny. Excepting for the obvious.
Juneteenth is observerd all over the south not just Texas. A big reunion time. Juneteenth? I don’t know why but may be they just can’t recall the exact date.
Two possibilities: either the driver was extremely grossly negligent to the point it pissed off everyone who saw it, or this was a black neighborhood and the victim was white.
Actually the VICTIM was trying to stop the assault on the DRIVER’s car. Everyone else was an aggressor or accomplice to a murder (until they step forward with information).
No snitchin’.
“Texas mob”. What image does that bring to mind?
They killed his passenger, not the driver. Another reason to be armed at all times. The most effective way to have ended this would have been to use a gun when the first rioter approached the car. Kill him, if need be.
Illegal alien?
Taking the beatings Americans don’t want?
Not too long ago, I wrote to a fellow freeper that, while she and I would stop for such an accident, we would be doing so at far greater risk to ourselves than ever used to be. This case is an example of what I was talking about. Often we get outraged about drivers who hit and then leave the scene, but, in light of what happened here, how much can we actually blame them? The scene of an accident is no longer an occasion to help the injured, but, rather, and occasion to murder the vehicle’s driver or passenger.
Vaca says that currently 73% of the identified suspects in anti-black crimes are Latino, and 80% of the suspects in anti-Latino crimes are black, according to a report by the county Commission on Human Relations.
As the Latino numbers continue to swell, it will exacerbate the potential for ethnic and racial conflict between the two groups.
Me too. This is outrageous!
That phrase pisses me off to NO END.
It almost caused A LOT of fights amongst the “thug-minded” in Basic for me.
Having gone to school in the mist of the San Fernando Valley, I most heartily concur. I went to Jr. High with a homeroom that had two individuals who spent three years arguing who was darker, one latino, one black. It will not be pretty.
Actually, it's June 19th.
I know this only because I work for a Fortune 500 company where yesterday, every employee received a memo about Juneteenth as part of our diversity focus. (sigh)
I too work for a Fortune 500 company, yet somehow we’ve escaped this particular indoctrination .
If we could only get these deadbeats as angry toward their own culture and gang members then we’d have something here.
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