Angry Mob in Texas Kills Man After Car Hit Girl
Pastor Dale Morgan
Angry Mob in Texas Kills Man After Car Hit Girl*
Wednesday June 20, 2007 9:46 PM
By LIZ AUSTIN PETERSON
Associated Press Writer
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - An angry mob beat a man to death after a vehicle he
was riding in struck and injured a young girl, police said Wednesday.
Police believe 2,000 to 3,000 people were in the area for a Juneteenth
celebration when the attack occurred Tuesday night.
The driver had stopped to check on the little girl at the entrance to an
apartment complex when a group of men attacked him, authorities said.
The passenger, David Rivas Morales, 40, got out to try to help the
driver, but the crowd turned on him, said police Commander Harold Piatt.
Morales was beaten to death by as many as 20 men and left lying in a
parking lot, Piatt said. A preliminary autopsy listed blunt force trauma
as the cause of death.
The little girl, 3 or 4 years old, was taken to a hospital with non-life
threatening injuries.
The driver, who got away from the crowd, is cooperating with
investigators, police said.
Piatt did not know how many witnesses had been identified, but thousands
of people had been in the area for the daylong festival. He said no guns
or knives appeared to have used in the fatal attack.
Juneteenth marks the day Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston in
1865 to share news of the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves
two years earlier on Jan. 1, 1863.