Preserving Dallas history through a mother’s pain

Bessie Rodriguez’s soul was torn forever in 1973 when her 12-year-old son, Santos, was wrongfully detained and then killed by a Dallas police officer. She died on Nov. 29, at 80 years old, after dedicating her life to the memory of her son.

Santos’ murder left a deep scar on Dallas that is still felt today. The unfathomable slaying of a boy angered and galvanized a Latino community that demanded changes, including more diversity in the police force and more Latinos in leadership roles. While Dallas has changed for the better — including a greater embrace of diversity and more police-to-community outreach — there is still much room for improvement.

For Bessie, change was slow to come and often frustrating. In a 2020 interview, she was pessimistic a few weeks after the nationwide protests over George Floyd’s death. “It is never going to stop,” she said back then.

It is hard to blame her. David, one of her other sons, witnessed the shooting death of his brother; the police officer who killed Santos, Darrell Lee Cain, was sentenced to just five years in prison. He served only two and a half. A lawsuit failed in 1973 and she never received any form of settlement.

It took more than four decades before a Dallas mayor, Mike Rawlings, issued an official apology in 2013. It took another seven years for a Dallas police chief to publicly acknowledge the department’s role in the tragedy when U. Reneé Hall attended a memorial and approached Bessie. Current Dallas police Chief Eddie García was the first to issue an official apology in 2021.

Bessie never had the eloquence of a Mamie Till, whose activism helped to spark the civil rights movement after her son Emmett’s lynching death in 1955, but her powerful presence was a constant reminder of Dallas’ dark history. Bessie was probably unaware of how influential she was for Dallas Latinos. At protests and memorial events, she constantly carried a photo of her son to keep his memory alive.

Santos Rodriguez’s short life has been remembered in plays, documentaries, scholarships and most recently in a statue in Pike Park, where he used to play as a child.

A recent initiative to name a street after him failed in the City Council, but it is an effort worth revisiting. The city of Dallas needs to recognize its role and responsibility, and we need to continue to preserve Santos’ memory.

We think it’s worth considering a proposal that retired police Officer David Smith made in a recent letter to the editor to name the road leading into the planned police academy at the University of North Texas at Dallas campus after Santos Rodriguez. Such a gesture would be a profound reminder of the loss and a powerful teaching opportunity for young officers.

With Bessie Rodriguez’s passing, preserving her son’s memory is now more important than ever. Knowing our history is a way of making sure we don’t repeat it.

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