Published: August 03, 2008 03:27 am            

An August day not to forget

I promised myself last year that I would never again be a part of a newspaper that would neglect to mention the single most tragic day of its existence.

I had written a column that August day, but had failed to remember the anniversary of the worst hostage situation ever to hit the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Today is Aug. 1, two days short of 34 years past the day of infamy for our community — for its good people.

As you read this, 34 years ago, negotiations as well as atrocities were taking place just across town at the Walls Unit.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials had been in an 11-day tug-of-war with convicted felons who had taken the Walls Unit school house hostage.

Yes, there were specific numbers, but the victim was collectively the people of Windham School District, of their offender peers, of this agency, of our little community. And we all were hurting.

As the afternoon of July 24 neared, an awful plot to kill and escape became a reality for the men and women of the Walls Unit. Three incarcerated felons chose the best hope for civilization (the school) as their target. They took teachers, librarians, correctional officers, and other convicts hostage and demanded to be set free.

They had guns and they had a plan. They had each enjoyed the civilized nature that comes with the territory in education. They chose individuals who had only come to serve. They chose the ones who had, in all probability, befreinded them the most— maybe the ones who listened with an intelligent and informed ear, to the stories of the offenders’ crimes, mistreatment by the system, poor legal representation and so on.

Yes, they had been human.

So, on Sunday, Aug. 3, we will relive that awful day in 1974, when the siege ended with the deaths of two Windham School District employees, two of the hostage-takers and two hostages. A Catholic priest, who volunteered himself in exchange for some or all of the hostages, lay injured along with the last living convict abductor.

Oh, and how appropriate is this. The one convict who survived the shootout lay covered with blood, still as a church mouse, having fainted during the chaotic minutes of the shootout. He was scared literally to unconsciousness.

What is not to love about a thug who terrorized women hostages for 11 days, but who fainted when the terror began to come to an end. Later, the State of Texas executed the lone survivor, but not before the appeals process got for him a new trial.

I would rather not even print his name, because to do so allows a certian dignity to a man who does not deserve it, but to omit the name Fred Gomez Carrasco places this column in danger of failure to be specific enough for readers who have come to our community since that awful day.

His name was Fred Gomez Carrasco, but to our community he was just Carrasco, with nothing to distinguish him as anything other than the brutal man that he was. He changed our lives with a violence that caused Middle America to keep thier children in the house on beautiful summer days that should have been spent playing waffle ball, swimming, and riding their bicycles.

Why? I’ll tell you why. As much as TDCJ is a part of our community, the criminal element involved comes to us from all over the state. They come from Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Buckholtz and Grapeland. Degenerate behavior does not dwell in the city alone, and the perpetrators of crimes against the people of this state do not discriminate one person from another when their freedom is at stake.

On the night of Aug. 3, after a day-long media blackout, we couldn’t wrench away the foreboding feeling that had seeped into our souls. Hero, Saint Susie and I were standing on our patio, looking to the red sky above The Walls Unit when the gunfire began. And, then there was nothing. It was the loudest silence I had ever heard — and nothing since has come close. They 11-day siege was over. . . except for living with the image of that night. Yes, all we had left to do was learn how to live with the horror that had come to the staff of one of the finest school districts on the planet. Year after year we have mastered that. But we cannot ever forget.

We must never, ever forget.

Aug. 3, 1974, a day that TDC Director W. J. Estelle Jr. called the “meanest day in the history of our agency.”

Yes it was.

        

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