Witnesses to the Sunday morning SUV attack on Venezuelan migrants in the border city of Brownsville, Texas that left eight dead tell the Guardian the driver of the SUV screamed “Damn your mother, immigrants!” and “Leave my country” before plowing his Range Rover into the crowd who were waiting at a bus stop outside of an overnight migrant shelter called the Ozanam Center.
Some sketchy media reports indicated the driver’s name is George Alvarez, describing him as a gangbanger covered in tattoos. Not necessarily mutually exclusive with that he could also hate Venezuelan migrants, especially considering that it was a Latino MAGA white supremacist who slaughtered eight people with an AR-15 at a mall in North Texas less than 24 hours earlier, but it might take a little more time to get a fuller picture on the motive in the apparent attack. Missing from the Guardian’s report was whether “Alvarez” had screamed at the victims in Spanish or English, which would certainly help determine whether it was Latino-on-Latino violence.
UPDATE 5/8/2023 11:51 AM EDT: Brownsville Police Chief Felix Sauceda at a Monday press conference confirmed the driver is 34 year-old George Alvarez, a criminal with “an extensive rap sheet” who is now charged with eight counts of manslaughter and ten counts of assault with a deadly weapon. Sauceda did not mention anything about the anti-migrant slurs.