Driver of SUV in Brownsville crash that killed 8 migrants had drugs in his system, police say

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

---

George Alvarez, the man charged in the deaths of eight people after his vehicle rammed a crowd in front of a Brownsville migrant shelter, had cocaine, benzodiazepines and marijuana in his system at the time, police said Tuesday.

Police are awaiting more toxicology reports before they determine a motive in the crash, Brownsville police investigator Martin Sandoval said. Witnesses said they heard the driver expressing anti-immigrant sentiments after he attempted to flee the scene.

The first toxicology report, which Sandoval said did not list levels of drugs in Alvarez’s bloodstream, was prepared by Valley Regional Hospital, where Alvarez was taken for treatment of injuries after the crash. Sandoval said police took a second sample, which they are testing to determine the drug levels.

That report will then be turned over to the Cameron County district attorney for a determination of whether charges should be altered or added, he said.

Alvarez, 34, is facing eight counts of manslaughter and additional charges stemming from injuries to 10 people.

While the police investigation continues, the community of Brownsville, a border town that has long been a waypoint for migrants, mourned. Many of those who were struck by the SUV were from Venezuela and had arrived in the United States in the past week, part of a mass migration from the troubled nation.

They had gathered at the Ozanam Center near the bus stop — the only overnight facility in the area serving migrants and the homeless.

On Monday night, a mother came forward to the stage at a candlelight vigil in Brownsville appearing exhausted, using a microphone to help her find justice for her son.

“I want that man to pay for what he did to my son. Please help me,” the woman said through tears.

Her son’s name is Hector David Medina Medero, his mother said, a young Venezuelan migrant who was a barber and had sought safety in the United States.

After she left the podium set up for speakers at the vigil, another young migrant took her hand and told her that her son didn’t make it.

The migrant who took her hand was later identified as Jesus Ferrer by Jared Hockema, chair of the Cameron County Democratic Party, who helped organize the event.

“Your son cut my hair,” said Ferrer, who said he witnessed the crash at the bus stop. He held Medero’s mother as she kissed his haircut.

“She said, ‘It was the last place my son had touched before he died,’” he added later, according to a video of the conversation.

The mother, dressed in black medical scrubs, wept deeply, holding her stomach and head in grief and falling into the crowd’s arms, said Melissa Castro, a community activist who filmed the event.

“She was just stunned,” Castro said. “This mother really showed people that these migrants were just human beings. Just regular people trying to survive in the world.”

The grief-stricken mother arrived at the Ozanam shelter Tuesday morning trying to see where her son had spent his last days, said Victor Maldonado, the shelter’s director. She walked through the premises desperately trying to find anything that belonged to him because all of the possessions he had when he died were confiscated by authorities, he said.

“Fortunately, his loafers were still in the dorm,” Maldonado said. “So now, at least she has that.”

Alvarez, whom police described as having a record that included prior charges of assault and driving while intoxicated, was apprehended by witnesses after the Sunday morning crash, according to police and witnesses.

Brownsville Police Chief Felix Sauceda said Monday that Alvarez was not cooperating in the investigation.

Sauceda said authorities had not “ruled out” an intentional act. Alvarez’s bond was set at $3.6 million, the chief said.

“This was a very tragic incident,” Saucedo said.

Saucedo said that “several” of the victims have been identified as Venezuelan nationals.

The victims — among them a welder and a racehorse jockey — had come to the United States fleeing the political and financial turmoil that has ravaged Venezuela for years, according to migrant advocates and witnesses.

“You could see the victims wearing shelter clothing and had tiny bags of belongings with little photographs of their mom or family,” said Cyndi Hinojosa, a Cameron County justice of the peace who had examined the bodies of the dead. “They had such meager things. I have a 23-year-old son, and it just hurt so much to think of these poor moms who don’t know where their sons are or if they are alive.”

The tragedy came amid rising tensions at the U.S.-Mexico border, where authorities expect a surge of migrants once a pandemic-era policy that allows rapid expulsions of asylum-seekers at the border is lifted this week.

But residents and migrants advocates say violence targeting migrants in Brownsville — which is located just north of the Mexican border town of Matamoros and is a major crossing point for migrants — has been rare, as the city has long been accustomed to migration and has seen an increase in people traversing the border over the past couple of years.

That welcoming spirit, however, could be changing.

Maldonado told The Washington Post that the center had not received any threats before the crash, but did afterward.

On Monday, a day after Sunday’s crash, Maldonado said a man approached the shelter’s front gate and yelled that the crash had been their fault.

In a separate incident Monday, a man in a blue vehicle parked across the street from the Ozanam center and displayed a gun to the security officer at the front gate, police said in a statement Tuesday. He then went to a side gate, where security guards told him that he could not enter the premises and called police. The man, identified by police as Joseph Serino, was later arrested and charged with possession of marijuana and reckless driving.

---

Tickets are on sale now for the 2023 Texas Tribune Festival, happening in downtown Austin on Sept. 21-23. Get your TribFest tickets by May 31 and save big!