University Daily Kansan
Friday, October 7, 1977
11
Policemen guilty in beating death
Terry Denson, 27, and Stephen Orlando,
22, showed no emotion as the verdict was
read by the all-white jury. They quickly
left the courtroom without comment.
HUNTSVILLE, Tex. (UP1) - Two former Houston police officer, who claimed they never meant to injure a drunken Mexican-American prisoner, yesterday were convicted of a misdemeanor in the beating and drowning of Joe Campos Torres Jr.
But the mother of Torres was outraged at the criminally negligent homicide conviction, which carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a $2,000 fine.
"Is that all they're going to get?" asked
Margaret Torres, who stared blankly at the empty courtroom. "It wasn't just a little thing they did. They should get more. They should be an animal. They killed a human being."
un May 6, Torres, 23, was arrested at a Houston nightspot for drunkenness. According to testimony in the month-long trial, Mr. Torres was found with insolence then dumped off a 16-foot pier into Buffalo Bayou near the downtown area. The body 'body' was found floating in the small lake.
Five officers were fired because of the Torres episode, but only Denson and
Orlando were charged with murder. Two of the remaining officers were granted immunity in exchange for prosecutor Michael Vargas was charged with misdeemeanor assault.
Attorney Ruben Bonilla said the verdict amounted to "giving police officers in this land a license to kill a drunk, especially a drunk Mexican."
The U.S. Justice Department has been checking for civil rights violations in the case, but a Washington spokesman said he would await evaluation of the state outcome.
But in Corpus Christi, the state director of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) already was urging justice department intervention.
"It was an enormous waste of our tax money and unimaginable, sheer navi牲 for anyone to think there could be a fair and lawful system in which the police capital of the state," Bonilla said.
The trial had been moved on a change of venue from Houston to Huntsville, a small east Texas city that is home for the state's massive department of corrections.
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