This article made its impression on The Texas Tribune, a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs and engages with Texans on public policy, politics, government, and state affairs.
As supporters of then-President Donald Trump surrounded and harassed a Joe Biden Crusade bus on a Central Texas highway last year, San Marcos police officers and 911 dispatchers responded to several requests from Democratic activists and bus passengers who said they feared for their protection from a motorist organization, Known as the “Trump Train,” he drove dangerously aggressively.
“San Marcos refused to help,” a modified federal lawsuit related to 2020 highway skirmish claims.
Audio recordings of the transcribed 911 and documents revealing behind-the-scenes communications between police and dispatchers were included in the amended lawsuit, filed Friday night.
The transcribed recordings were archived in an attempt to show that San Marcos law enforcement officers chose not to provide a police escort to the bus on several occasions, even though police departments in other nearby towns did so. Marcos’ police corporal on duty on the day of the incident, refused to provide escort when passing through some other jurisdiction.
“No, we’re going to do that,” Daenzer told a 911 dispatcher, according to the amended file. “We’re going to ‘shut down the patrol,’ but we’re going to escort a bus. “
The amended record also states that in those audio recordings, law enforcement officials “laughed privately” and “joked about the victims and their distress. “
Former state Sen. Wendy Davis, who was running for Congress at the time, is among the 4 plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The new lawsuit also increases the number of Americans and entities prosecuted to accompany Daenzer, San Marcos Deputy Police Chief Brandon Winkenwerder and the city itself. A city spokesman did not respond without delay to a request for comment Friday night. Daenzer and Winkenwerder may not be contacted without delay.
The showdown between Biden’s bus and Trump supporters made national news after its filming on the last weekend of October 2020, when polls showed a close race in Texas between the two candidates. Trump then praised the custom of his supporters, which happened months before the former president’s supporters violently stormed the U. S. Capitol in an obvious attempt to prevent Congress from certifying the effects of his defeat in re-election.
The Texas highway incident featured at least one minor collision and prompted Texas Democrats to cancel 3 planned crusades in Central Texas, raising “safety concerns. “The initial lawsuit filed against Chase Stapp, San Marcos’ director of public safety, and the San Marcos City Marshal’s Department and alleges that the plaintiffs continue to suffer psychic and emotional damages in the wake of the fact, seek compensatory, punitive damages and legal fees.
The lawsuit alleges that by refusing to receive aid, law enforcement officials violated the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 because they were aware of “violent political intimidation” but failed to take adequate steps to prevent Trump supporters from intimidating eligible voters.
The Klan Act provision the plaintiffs cite in the lawsuit has lain dormant for years, but has noticed a resurgence under the Trump administration, according to Democracy Project attorney John Paredes, who represents some of the plaintiffs. demand opposed to Trump after the January 6 uprising.
A momentary lawsuit has been filed against an organization of Trump supporters who allegedly harassed and tracked the bus. The lawsuit alleges that the organization of Trump supporters who surrounded the bus violated the Ku Klux Klan Act and Texas law by organizing a “politically motivated plot. “to disrupt the crusade and intimidate its supporters. “
The amended lawsuit in the lawsuit opposing officials said a San Marcos crime analyst and a Biden supporter alerted city police that Biden’s bus was being followed by Trump supporters as he headed for a planned crusade to prevent at Texas State University in San Marcos.
While Stapp, the director of public safety, told the Biden supporter that San Marcos police would send reinforcements, he ordered an escort. The complaint says he sent the data to Winkenwerder, the deputy police chief. Winkerwerder also ordered escort or assistance, according to the complaint. Instead, he ordered officials to “close the patrol” in the domain near the university.
When Biden’s bus entered San Marcos’ jurisdiction, a New Braunfels 911 dispatcher attempted to get San Marcos police to take over the escort the city had provided along Interstate 35.
The 911 dispatcher in San Marcos put the New Braunfels dispatcher and Biden’s crusade staff member on hold, who called for help and called Daenzer, the police manager on duty.
“I’m so upset that New Braunfels did this to us,” the dispatcher told Daenzer, who answered the call and laughed, according to the recording transcribed in the file. “They have their officers escorting this Biden bus, essentially, and Trump’s exercise cuts between cars and driving: it’s competitive and slows them down to about 20 or 30 miles depending on the time, and they need you to respond to help.
“No, let’s do it. We’re going to ‘shut down the patrol,’ but we’re going to escort a bus,” Daenzer replies.
The transcript shows the 911 dispatcher relaying data on the sense of danger expressed through the Biden Crusade staff member who called for help while attempting to make a bus caravan in a white van.
[E] they’re on it and he’s breathing hard and stuff, like ‘they’re aggressive. ‘It is ok. Calm down,” he told Daenzer.
The transcript shows Daenzer said Biden’s bus “drives defensively and that will be great. “
“Or the train,” the 911 dispatcher replies. “There is an idea. “
According to the transcript of the complaint, the dispatcher picked up the phone with Biden’s member and told him there would be no escort.
“If you feel like you’re threatened or you’re threatened, remind us definitively,” he told her.
“Are you kidding, ma’am?” The member responded before saying “I was threatened several times with a vehicle crash” and again asked for an escort.
The dispatcher reiterated that officials would be there to monitor traffic violations, however, he said there would be no escort and said the resolution made through a senior police officer that the trial claims to be Winkenwerder.
According to Friday’s record, San Marcos police continued to receive 911 calls from other witnesses who warned them of reckless driving on I-35, but the police branch did not send an escort. Austin.
Eric Cervini, crusade volunteer and whistleblower, had already arrived at the site of the occasion in San Marcos, alerted Cole Stapp, a deputy of the municipal sheriff’s branch who was at the site, that the occasion was canceled and told him that the bus . “I might need your help,” the record read.
When Cole Stapp called 911 to convey the message that the Biden occasion in San Marcos had been canceled, he did not say the bus needed help, according to the audio recording transcribed in the modified folder.
Instead, he told Cervini that other people on the bus call 911 if they needed emergency services. When Cervini informed him that the bus had already called 911 and shared the precise location of the bus, Cole Stapp noticed that the bus was close to police. headquarters, as recorded in the file.
“Despite calls for assistance from the plaintiffs and others, during the approximately 30 minutes it took to cross San Marcos on the main highway that runs through it, there were no San Marcos officers or other police vehicles in sight, neither on I-35 exit nor forward ramps, or on any aspect of the road, ” indicates the folder.
Without police escorts, say those on the bus, Trump supporters have become more competitive around the bus and car of crusade staff members. At one point, there was a collision between one of Trump’s supporters and the white van driven during Biden’s crusade. staff member who in the past had connected with the San Marcos dispatcher. It wasn’t until the bus arrived in Kyle around 3:46 p. m. that a police escort from that city arrived and Trump supporters drove away from the vehicle, according to the lawsuit. .
But when Kyle’s police escort left the Travis County border, according to the file, the Trucks of Trump supporters “resumed their threatening behavior. “It wasn’t until the bus was able to reach a country that prevents the other people on board from being Austin Biden’s crusade has canceled several times for security reasons.
According to the file, the plaintiffs allege that a text message between some of the San Marcos police officers who refused to provide assistance “mocked the attack. “
To this claim, the lawsuit refers to a text message from the organization among San Marcos officers, adding Winkenwerder, in which an unidentified user appears to refer to Democrats who passed through the city as a derogatory jargon term for a mentally disabled user.
The next day, Chase Stapp, the director of public safety, texted several officials about the situation, according to Friday’s file. “As far as I can understand, Biden’s bus didn’t even leave I-35 thanks to Trump’s escort. . “
However, in the days that followed, after news of the tumult spread, agents began calling the occasion a “debacle” in internal emails and preparing for a “political firestorm” after agents learned that what had happened in San Marcos “could lead to legal consequences. consequences,” the complaint alleges.
When Daenzer wrote the incident report 4 days later, he said that “due to worker corps issues, lack of time to plan, and lack of knowledge of the route, we were unable to provide an escort. “
A spokesman for the city of San Marcos told the Texas Tribune last year that police responded to requests for assistance for the bus, but traffic prevented officials from catching up before the bus left the city limits.
Still, Lisa Prewitt, a former San Marcos City Council member who was running for a county commissioner position at the time, told the Tribune in the days following the skirmish that she reported the occasion to local police 24 hours in advance and raised safety concerns. Prewitt said he also called Chase Stapp and warned him that the bus was 30 minutes from the scene of the occasion in San Marcos and was being followed by 50 or more cars with Trump flags.
Last year, Chase Stapp denied that Prewitt in particular had asked for a police escort or discussed that the “Trump Train” was causing trouble, but did not respond to follow-up questions at the time.
“With the exception of Ms. Prewitt’s two phone calls, at no time did anyone in the crusade seek help from the San Marcos Police Department before the occasion so that the application can be evaluated and prepared,” Chase Stapp said in a statement to the Tribune last year.
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