Unfair Park from p6 said the man was shot while he reached for an “edged weapon.” The incident came a week after a deten- tion center warden in West Texas’ Hudspeth County, along with another man, reportedly opened fire on two migrants, killing one, in a drive-by shooting. Along with local police and an internal investigatory unit, the FBI has taken charge of a probe into the latest shooting. Although Border Patrol has said its agents were in- volved, it hasn’t released further details about the incident. In a statement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Border Patrol agents “as- signed to the Ysleta Border Patrol Station, were involved in a shooting incident at the Ysleta station.” “One person in custody was shot and transported to a local hospital for evaluation and treatment,” the statement added. The FBI in El Paso later told media the man died of his wounds. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas has called for a “transpar- ent and thorough” investigation of the fatal shooting. “No person should be harmed while de- tained by the government,” the ACLU of Texas said on Twitter last Wednesday. “The horrific, fatal shooting of an individual in Border Patrol custody affirms the need for public accountability. We demand a trans- parent and thorough investigation.” Last month, two men, among them a mi- grant detention center warden in Hud- speth County, allegedly carried out a drive-by shooting targeting migrants walk- ing along the road. The attack left one dead, while another migrant was hospitalized with injuries. The drive-by led Texas Democratic Party chairman Gilberto Hinojosa to accuse Re- publicans of “violent fear-mongering of un- documented migrants.” “At the state and federal level, we have plenty of work to do in securing our border – namely by finally enacting a fair, humane, and orderly immigration system – but that gives no excuse to these Republicans who are all but beating a war drum against not the immigration system, but rather the indi- vidual border-crossers themselves,” Hino- josa said in a press release. He added, “This vitriol must end before even more people are killed.” Fiscal Year 2021 saw more than 560 mi- grants die on the U.S.-Mexico border, the highest number since the government began tracking the deaths. Between January 2010 and August 2022, at least 243 people died during “encounters” with Customs and Border Protection, ac- cording to the ACLU of Texas’ database. That tally included 19 children, 35 U.S. citizens or permanent residents and at least 14 deaths “related to the border wall,” the ACLU of Texas says. In recent months, Texas Republicans, in- 8 8 cluding Gov. Greg Abbott, have ramped up anti-migrant rhetoric, sounding the alarm on what they call an “invasion” on the state’s southern border with Mexico. Rights groups have accused the governor and others in the Texas GOP of fanning the flames of anti-migrant violence. ▼ CRIME LONG HITLIST T IF CONVICTED, EVERETT COPELIN COULD FACE UP TO 15 YEARS BEHIND BARS. BY PATRICK STRICKLAND he way federal authorities tell it, Ev- erett Wayne Copelin had a long list of people he intended to kill: migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, Black peo- ple, Jews, federal agents and supporters of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke. In early September, the FBI learned of Copelin’s threats, which he made under the username “Alpha Top Dog Pure Blood” in posts on the right-wing social media outlet Gab. Now, federal authorities have charged the 40-year-old Amarillo resident with mak- ing interstate threatening communications and threatening a federal officer. Copelin made his initial appearance in court last Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Lee Ann Reno. If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison, the U.S. Depart- ment of Justice in North Texas said in a press release. A public defender listed as Copelin’s at- torney couldn’t be reached for comment. As Texas Republicans and right-wing politicians nationwide escalate anti-migrant rhetoric and call for the FBI to be abolished, Copelin is one of the latest to end up in handcuffs over allegedly threatening mi- grants and federal officers, among others. In a Gab post on Sept. 8, Copelin vowed to travel to the U.S.-Mexico border and “start shooting invaders with joy and honor,” an FBI agent said in an affidavit filed in court. In the same post, he said he’d shoot and kill federal agents, promising to “blow these FEDS away” because they “are letting [mi- grants] in here with the Jews at the State Department,” echoing the white nationalist conspiracy theory that Jews are behind mi- gration as a supposed plot to undermine the country’s racial makeup. A week later, he posted on Gab a call for “all strong able-bodied White alpha men” to obtain sniper rifles and “get to the border now and drop these fools.” In yet another post, he reportedly threat- ened to hang a man who had a Mexican flag on his car. On Sept. 25, he said he’d kill anyone with a Beto O’Rourke sticker or yard sign, adding: “I’ll hang you on a light pole at dusk.” In late August, Copelin allegedly wrote, “I love killin’ n******, especially the young ones in their 20s fucking my white women and beating on ‘em.” Around that time, he also said he was “gonna kill these bitches and blow their asses up,” referring to Inter- nal Revenue Services agents. In several posts, Copelin included im- ages of guns and knives, according to court records. H is arrest comes amid a sharp spike in GOP rhetoric dubbing the humani- tarian crisis on the U.S.-Mexico bor- der an “invasion,” language that also appeared in the manifesto published by the white nationalist shooter who killed 23 peo- Federal Bureau of Investigation Everett Copelin targeted minorities. ple in an El Paso Walmart in August 2019. It also comes as Republicans in Texas and beyond continue to call for the FBI to be abolished in the wake of the search by agents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. In a July interview on Fox News, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told host Maria Bartiromo that “we do have an invasion driven by the cartels coming across our border that are pouring people into our country at unprece- dented levels.” Late last month, two men, including a de- tention center warden in West Texas’ Hud- speth County, were arrested after allegedly opening fire on migrants in a drive-by shoot- ing. The shooting killed one of the migrants, while another was hospitalized. After that incident, the Texas Democratic Party issued a statement accusing Republicans of tilling the soil for violence and hate crimes. In the statement, state Democratic Party chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said the drive- by was “the direct result of Texas Republi- cans’ violent fearmongering of undocumented migrants.” Hinojosa said that “when you continu- ously use language like ‘invasion’ to describe what is happening at our border, the only log- ical conclusion is that you want migrants and asylum-seekers to be treated like ‘invaders.’” He added, “We saw this in El Paso, when a racist monster drove hundreds of miles just to slaughter innocent shoppers at a Wal- Mart, ginned up by the bigoted language that Texas Republicans use to rally their base.” Speaking to the Observer, Efrén Olivares, the deputy legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Immigrant Justice Project, explained that anti-migrant rhetoric is “spilling over and absolutely con- tributing to people resorting to violence.” Freddy Cruz, a research analyst for the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, said, “Now, as we get closer to the elections, a lot of the rhetoric is really fueling a lot of activity by extremists.” Meanwhile, several Republicans, among them U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson, have also railed against the FBI in recent months. In a recent Fox News interview, Jackson suggested that the FBI had planted evidence to frame Trump when it served a search warrant on the former president’s residence. “No one trusts the FBI or the DOJ any- more,” he said. For his part, Cruz recently told the ultra- conservative outlet Newsmax that the “po- litical DOJ” was acting as a “partisan weapon” under President Joe Biden. “He treats it like the storm troopers for the Dem- ocratic National Committee.” ▼ POLICE TASER TROUBLE T FRISCO POLICE OFFICERS TASED A MAN, CAUSING HIM TO FALL TO THE GROUND AND DIE FROM A HEAD INJURY. BY JACOB VAUGHN he Texas Rangers and Collin County District Attorney’s Office are investigating the death of a man who was chased down and tased by Frisco police officers. According to a Sept. 30 press release from the Frisco Police Department, officers re- sponded to a report about a man who was trying to use a fraudulent ID to buy a car at a local dealership in the 9600 block of State Highway 121. When the officers tried to de- tain the man, he ran, according to the depart- ment. The officers gave chase, telling the man that if he didn’t stop, they would tase him. The department claims the man didn’t comply, so one of the officers deployed his taser. The shot was ineffective because it didn’t make full contact. That’s when an- other officer whipped out his taser and zapped the fleeing man. The officer’s shot caused the man to fall and hit his head on the ground. The man was seriously injured by the fall, police said, and the Frisco Fire Department transferred him to a nearby hospital. Despite receiving treatment, he died on Sept. 29. The Frisco PD’s policies on critical inci- dents call for an external investigation by the Texas Rangers and Collin County DA’s Office. Both have been investigating the in- cident since the day it happened. The department says it can’t comment further because of the ongoing investiga- tion. It said in its press release, “Our thoughts are with all of those affected by this incident, to include officers and family members of the deceased.” Tasers are just one of many non-lethal weapons police use that have come under scrutiny over the years. There have been sto- ries from across the country about people being tased, falling to the ground and suffer- ing traumatic or fatal brain injuries. In 2014, an Ohio man won a $2.25 million settlement in a lawsuit against his local police department for brain damage he suffered af- ter cops tased him, causing him to fall and hit his head. Matthew Hook, who was 23 at the time, was fleeing police after he was seen driving a stolen van, according to the Associ- ated Press. An officer tased Hook as he tried to climb a fence to get away. That’s when Hook fell and hit his head, causing brain damage that his family said at the time caused him to become emotionally unstable and re- quire constant medical attention. A report in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine in 2016 found that electrical weap- ons like tasers present “a small but real risk of death from fatal traumatic brain injury.” “While generally reducing morbidity and MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 OCTOBER 13-19, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.comdallasobserver.com
