By Juan Montoya
Who would have thunk that it has been 39 years ago this past June that saw the Palacio Municipal de Matamoros up in flames, and charred bodies dug out from the debris at the city jail?
But the newspaper clipping don't lie. On June 26, 1978, those of us on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande saw plumes of fire and smoke coming from the area around the cathedral and jumped in a car and hot-footed it over there to see what was going on.
By the time we arrived, the Matamoros City Hall was gutted with fire, the mayor and his entourage had fled by a side door, and soldiers were patrolling the Plaza Hidalgo to deter potential looters. There were hulks of cars which had been set on fire still smoldering on the streets.
At the city jail a few block to the west, flames were coming up from inside the walls and prisoners had been trundled off under guard. A few of us from the Brownsville Herald had ventured out to the streets to see what had happened in our neighbor city and encountered a city in turmoil.
A crowd of students numbering some 4,000 were protesting the beating death of fellow student Salvador Barrios Antes at the hands of Matamoros Police Chief Emiliano Del Toro after he had been taken to jail. His fellow students went to the city plaza and demanded that the mayor and municipal authorities take the appropriate steps to arrest the guilty cops and charge them with murder.
Facing thousands of hostile students demanding he do something about the initial murder, Mayor Antonio Cavazos Garza said from the second-floor balcony of the municipal palace that he would not give in to their demands. He shouldn't have. Enraged, students stormed the city hall and sent Hizzoner scurrying with his body guard to escape their wrath.
Cars on the streets were set on fire, banks and businesses set ablaze, and then the students marched to the jail where their colleague had been beaten. They broke in and set the offices on fire. After the fire was put out, there were several bodies found in the charred debris. If you look at the picture on the bottom closely, the guy in the Tejano hat looking on as a body is found is none other than Jerry McHale, then a sports reporter from the Herald. The photo was taken by AP reporter/photographer Ken Herman, who went on to work for the wire service in Austin.
Police and soldiers charged the crowd and three other students died at the hands of law enforcement. Two days later, state police arrested Del Toro and three agents and charged with the initial murder that led to the rioting. The photo on top was taken by Herald reporter David Crowder who since went on to become an editor at the El Paso Times.
6 comments:
I was a high school student. I remember my parents listening to XEEW on the radio, my mom and dad watched 24 Horas news with Jacobo Zabludosky and listened to the mayor of Matamoros talking. Back then, some would say like now, Matamoros and Brownsville were only news when we had a hurricane, when the spring breakers came to the island and when Charro Days and Fiestas Mexicanas invited Televisa stars. The rest of the time, we didn't exist.
Is ther a special code to help me decipher this message?
Still remember it like yesterday, I was one of the group that rescued Emiliano del Toro from the office where the students had him surrounded, and took him to the Mayor's house at Colonia Jardin.
Ask Jim to help you out , pendejo ! Fuck you, Diego !
I am proud burn the place
It was a free for all, so much destruction and looting. An article like this shows violence is not the best resource, innocent people lost their income and work.
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