6 March 30–april 5, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents advocacy group Centurion Ministries and the Dallas County District Attorney’s Of- fice’s Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) con- cluded “that Mr. Santillan is actually innocent,” a press release said. “It remains our job to correct past wrongs, which is what the CIU team in my office worked tirelessly to do,” said Dallas County Criminal District Attorney John Creuzot in the statement. “We owe it to Mr. Santillan to clear his name fully and com- pletely. I sincerely apologize to Mr. Santillan and his family for this miscarriage of justice and I am proud to say that today justice has been done for him. Also, let’s not forget the victim, Damond Wittman, and his family. This office is committed to work to hold ac- countable who we feel to be the actual per- petrator of this heinous crime.” On July 14, 1997, 21-year-old Wittman was shot and killed outside a club in Deep Ellum just after 1 a.m. Witnesses at the time say the shooter was a Hispanic male wear- ing a Dallas Stars hockey jersey who ran from the scene. The jersey was found with blood on it, discarded a few blocks away in the middle of a street. Days after the murder, only one of the three witnesses, who had reportedly been drinking steadily that night, picked Santillan as the shooter out of a photo lineup. Santil- len presented an alibi that, according to Paul Castelerio of Centurion, “was based on the testimony of five witnesses,” yet the jury re- lied more on the testimony of the lone pros- ecution witness picking Santillan’s photo. According to Santillan’s appeal filing in 2000, he was in Deep Ellum on the night of Wittman’s murder, but was not near the scene of the crime. A bouncer at the bar San- tillan said he was at with a group of friends, testified that Santillan was wearing “gang banger clothing,” not a Dallas Stars hockey jersey, and did not leave that bar until 2:30 a.m., an hour after Wittman was shot. Following his conviction, Santillan chal- lenged his case on direct appeal and a previ- ous writ of habeas corpus, both of which were denied, as was his request for post- conviction DNA testing. In 2008 and 2014, Centurion requested the CIU conduct up- dated DNA tests on the Stars jersey and a cigarette butt that the shooter had left at the scene. On each of those occasions, “forensic limitations prevented any new conclusions from being made,” the press release stated. The CIU reviewed Santillan’s case again in 2021, using a newer, more sophisticated DNA testing method on the hockey jersey. That test revealed biological deposits on the cuffs of the sleeves, yielding DNA profiles of a pair of unknown individuals. A match made through the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) led investigators to eventually iden- tify a new suspect in Wittman’s murder, who was apprehended with the help of the Colo- rado Springs Police Department. The press release notes the new suspect cannot be identified at this time because the suspect was a minor when the murder oc- curred. In February, on the strength of the new findings, the Criminal Court of Appeals agreed Santillan was innocent and granted him a new trial, which led to the final reso- lution last week. “What happened to Mr. Santillan 25 years ago was a terrible injustice,” Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia is quoted as saying in the press release. “I am grateful for the hard work and dedication of our partners involved to clear this man’s name and make sure the true person responsible for this heinous crime is behind bars. This exoneration, and the arrest of the person responsible is the justice Mr. Santillan deserves, while providing true jus- tice for Mr. Wittman and his loved ones.” ▼ LEGISLATURE STATE-SANCTIONED CRYPTO SAFETY SOME TEXAS LAWMAKERS HAVE CRYPTOCURRENCY ON THEIR MINDS. BY JACOB VAUGHN C ryptocurrency is on the minds of sev- eral state lawmakers this legislative session. Bills have been filed to aid in crypto mining, to set up a Texas digital cur- rency backed by gold and to officially wel- come the Bitcoin economy to the state. State Rep. Cody Harris, a Republican from Palestine, filed a resolution in the Leg- islature last week seeking to protect Texans’ access to Bitcoin. Harris’ House Concurrent Resolution 89 describes Bitcoin as a secure network of peer-to-peer transactions that has brought about a number of technologi- cal breakthroughs. Bitcoin has become a widely used crypto- currency over the years, with Texas making up about a quarter of all mining activity in the country. The resolution says that the Chinese government banning the mining of cryptocurrency in 2021 led to what some call the “great mining migration,” which brought many operations to Texas. Other states have tried to ban or temporarily sus- pend Bitcoin mining operations, but Harris thinks these miners’ activities should be protected by the Texas Constitution. His HCR 89 asks the Legislature to “ex- press support for protecting individuals who code or develop on the Bitcoin network in accordance with Section 8, Article 1, of the Texas Constitution.” This section of the state constitution says “Every person shall be at liberty to speak, write or publish his opinions on any subject.” His resolution also asks that people who mine Bitcoin in Texas never be inhibited by any law or resolution that restricts their abil- ity to do so. These Bitcoin miners would also be welcome to seek any form of energy to help secure their network in Texas, under Harris’ resolution. The resolution would be a way of saying that the Bitcoin economy is welcome in Texas A bill filed by Rep. Oscar Longoria, a La Joya Democrat, would help fuel crypto’s expansion into Texas. Longoria’s House Bill 4278 would establish a program to help Bitcoin miners set up shop in orphaned gas wells in the state. These are wells that aren’t in use but haven’t been properly de- commissioned. House Rep. Mark Dorazio, a San Antonio Republican, filed House Bill 1493 to set up a state digital currency backed by gold. This bill would set up a trust of purchased gold to back a new digital currency in Texas. The state comptroller or someone appointed by the comptroller will serve as the trustee to manage all of the gold backing the digital currency. This person would be responsible for maintaining enough gold to pay out ev- ery owner of the digital currency. House bills 4278 and 1493, both of which have identical companion bills in the Senate, would take effect in September if enacted. ▼ CRIME “A FRIENDLY, QUIET KID” STUDENT KILLED IN ARLINGTON LAMAR HIGH SCHOOL SHOOTING NAMED BY FAMILY. BY KELLY DEARMORE T he student killed in a shooting out- side of Lamar High School in Arling- ton last week was identified by his family, according to reports from The Dallas Morning News and WFAA. Jashawn Poirier, 16, is named in a GoFundMe campaign set up by someone named Na’Jai Jacob, who says they are Poirier’s cousin. “Jashawn was a friendly, quiet kid. He made friends easily and had quite a few of them who loved him,” the GoFundMe page reads. “He enjoyed video games, football, sport outings and just hanging out with friends and family. This loss has taken a toll on our family and I know it hits hard for families that have been through this same situation.” According to KTVT, the 15-year-old sus- pect, apprehended by police on high school grounds moments after the shooting oc- curred, attended a detention hearing in Tar- rant County on March 21. The suspect wiped away tears as the judge announced the decision to keep him detained on a charge of capital murder. The KTVT report noted, “The judge read aloud details from the police report, which said the boy was captured on surveillance video from two different angles, pulling a long gun out of a backpack and shooting toward a group of students just before 7 a.m.” The judge also read that the male victim was shot in the neck. In addition to the one student killed, a girl was struck by a bullet on the cheek but did not suffer life-threatening injuries. “I’m still numb, but I’m thankful more kids weren’t hurt,” Lamar Principal Andrew Hagman said during the press conference, held outside on the high school’s campus on the day of the shooting. School was canceled at Lamar on March 21, with classes resuming the following day. ▼ RACISM LONE STAR HATE WHY IS TEXAS THE NO. 1 STATE FOR WHITE SUPREMACIST PROPAGANDA? BY SIMONE CARTER T exas’ state motto is “friendship,” but you wouldn’t know it from the recent news that the Lone Star State is No. 1 in the nation for white supremacist propa- ganda. Earlier this month, the Anti-Defamation League dropped a report that found in 2022 Texas was home to more than 525 such inci- dents out of 6,751 nationwide, the highest total the organization has ever recorded. This represented a spike of roughly 60% in Texas and nearly 40% nationwide compared with the previous year. The across-the-board increase included greater dissemination of antisemitic, anti- LGBTQ and racist stickers, flyers, graffiti and more. The ADL also found that Patriot Front, a hate group based in Texas, ac- counted for around 80% of the country’s propaganda distributions. Patriot Front espouses the creation of a white ethnostate and is spreading its ideas across the country. Members last year dis- tributed propaganda and graffitied the group’s logo in Ohio, for instance. Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, wasn’t surprised to learn that Texas had the highest number of white supremacist propaganda incidents last year. She noted that Patriot Front is “one of the most active white su- premacist groups in the country” and that the Proud Boys hate group also has a strong presence in Texas. “I think one of the main drivers here has been this crusade against the LGBTQ popu- lation, which, interestingly, was begun really by Republicans and then spread into the ranks of white supremacists,” she said. Prominent GOP politicians in ultraconser- vative states like Florida are spearheading legislative charges against that community, Unfair Park from p4 Shutterstock Texans who mine Bitcoin cannot be restricted if Rep. Harris’ bill passes into law.
