:quality(75)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcomercio/UYXI24XZTNAE3HHKMFUYAGXFQI.webp "“I have no leg, my dreams have been broken”: Venezuelan recounts his drama after surviving the accident in Texas")
George Alvareza man with a criminal record, was charged Monday with culpable homicide, after ramming his truck into a crowd in the city of Brownsville, Texas, on the border with Mexico, killing eight people, including several Venezuelan migrants.
alvarez34 years old, ran a red light and lost control of his car on sundayrunning over a group of people who were waiting at a bus stop in front of a migrant reception center, explained the chief of the Brownsville Police Department, Félix Sauceda.
LOOK: Police identify the driver who ran over Venezuelans in Texas as George Alvarez and accuse him of involuntary manslaughter
The incident left at least eight people dead, all of them men, the officer said, and 10 injured, some in critical condition.
gabriel gallardo He is one of the 10 injured migrants. From a hospital bed, the Venezuelan spoke exclusively with Noticias Telemundo.
He said he emigrated from Venezuela to give his children a better future and that he had just been released from a temporary detention center when he was run over and lost one of his legs.
“I came to look for a better future for my children and now it turns out that I have no legs. My dreams have been broken, they’re gone.” he lamented.
”I came here looking for a better future for my children and now it turns out that I don’t have legs,” says a migrant survivor of the Brownsville hit-and-run. Video @TelemundoNews pic.twitter.com/XbzGeBaEAj
— Jesus Andrés Bastidas (@JesusBastidasP) May 8, 2023
From Venezuelahis wife with their two children He asked President Joe Biden for help so they can travel to the United States and be together with Gallardo.
Police chief Sauceda indicated that authorities were still awaiting a toxicology report on alvarezand they did not rule out any motive for the incident.
“George Alvarez is a Brownsville resident with an extensive rap sheet,” he said when displaying the list of previous charges of the detainee that include assault, robbery and driving while intoxicated.
LOOK: What is known about the massive attack that left 8 Venezuelan migrants dead in Brownsville, Texas
The authorities initially considered the incident accidental, although a witness told AFP that the driver had shouted insults at the group before accelerating.
Several of the deceased were migrants and they are working with officials from the Border Patrol to verify your income to the United States.
After the crash, the motorist tried to flee but he was held by people at the scene until the police arrived, according to Sauceda.
In addition to the eight counts of manslaughter, Alvarez was charged with 10 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon: his vehicle.
immigration crisis
He incident took place at a time when the government of USA prepares for the lifting of a sanitary measure known as Title 42which due to the covid-19 pandemic has allowed Border Patrol agents to deport or reject migrants without even accepting their asylum applications.
The expiration of this rule this Thursday makes authorities fear an increase in the number of migrants entering the southern United States illegally.
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The presidents of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and of the United States, Joe Biden, will hold a dialogue on Tuesday by video call about the migration crisis, the Mexican president announced on Monday.
The government of President Nicolás Maduro asked to “investigate in depth the facts and clarify its causes, in order to rule out any intentions related to hateful and xenophobic practices.”
On his side, the Bishop of brownsvilleDaniel Flores, said in a statement that the deceased were “immigrant men from Venezuela” and urged to “resist the corrosive trend of devaluing the lives of immigrants, the poor and the vulnerable.”
Sauceda did not provide details about the victims, beyond confirming that “several” were migrants from Venezuela. He said police were in contact with the Venezuelan government and foreign embassies regarding the victims.
“Suddenly”
“It was suddenly. A lady passed by in a car and tells us to get out of the way and we get out of the way. It was in a matter of moments. The murderer came in the car pointing at us, insulting us, calling us things like ‘motherfucker’ (son of a bitch), I don’t know, things like that that I don’t understand,” Luis Herrera, a 36-year-old Venezuelan who was at the scene and he was wounded in the arm.
“He gave all the volume (speed) to the car and it just passed me by one side”, He held pointing to his arm.
He winding mass took place in front of the Ozanam Centera shelter for the homeless and migrants that has been very active in recent weeks due to “the current influx” of people crossing the border from Mexico, the police spokesman for Mexico explained on Sunday. brownsvilleMartin Sandoval.
The victims were in a group of about 25 people waiting at a bus stop, according to Víctor Maldonado, executive director of the reception center.
Maldonado, what described a creepy scene, with body parts along the streetindicated that the group was made up solely of Venezuelans who had just had breakfast at the facilities.
Witnesses were “really shocked”Maldonado told AFP.
He ozanam center it is open 24 hours, explained Maldonado. He commented that they house people who have been migrating from Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, China, Ukraine and Venezuela.
This event comes a day after a man killed at least eight people in a shopping center, also in Texas, in the most recent mass shooting to rock the country.
Source: Elcomercio
I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.
