Thinking of the Torres family today -

[TBF]

Unfortunately this is not the happiest news on a Saturday, but I saw the story this morning and wanted to preserve it in my journal. Feeling very sad for Sandra Torres and her family today.


Jacob Molinas

Another tragedy for Torres family
Police brutality victim's nephew is casualty of war

By LINDSAY WISE
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
July 22, 2011, 11:19PM

For Sandra Torres, the brutal death of her brother Joe at the hands of Houston police in 1977 is a raw sore that never healed. It still festers in her heart, more than three decades after the 23-year-old Vietnam veteran's battered body was found floating in Buffalo Bayou.

"I was an 8-year-old kid," she said. "I think about that all the time, the way his life was taken. I think about it all the time. It hurts."

The Torres family grappled with tragedy again when Army Sgt. Jacob Molina was killed in a roadside bombing in Afghanistan on Tuesday. The 27-year-old soldier was the nephew of Joe Campos Torres, who died in one of the most notorious cases of police brutality in Houston's history.

"No family deserves to go through what we've been through," Sandra Torres said.

Molina never met his uncle, but he grew up hearing stories about him, and looking at pictures of him in uniform. His decision to join the Army was motivated in part by his uncle's service, relatives say.

Joe Campos Torres was wearing his Army fatigues and combat boots when Houston police arrested him after a disturbance at an East End bar in May 1977.

He drowned after being severely beaten by officers and thrown into Buffalo Bayou. His body was found floating in the water a few days later.

The officers were convicted of negligent homicide and received probation of one year in state court. Federal charges resulted in prison sentences of a year and a day for civil rights violations, and a decade of probation for conspiracy.

A year after Torres' death, outrage in the Hispanic community erupted into violent protests known as the Moody Park riots. Dozens of people were arrested and 15 injured.

"The community had this insurrection in the face of the brutality of the Houston Police Department," said Carlos Calbillo, a community historian and filmmaker who made a documentary about the Torres case.

Much more at the link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...#ixzz1SvlHEhw2


Joe Torres

[blindpig]

1. k&r