A Texas jury on Friday found a driver guilty of intoxication manslaughter over the deaths of eight people who were struck by an SUV that plowed into a crowded bus stop outside a migrant shelter on the U.S.-Mexico border. The verdict was handed down by a Cameron County jury more than a year after authorities say George Alvarez lost control of the vehicle after running a red light in May 2023. The deadly scene happened in Brownsville, which has long been an epicenter for migration.
Alvarez was found guilty of eight counts of intoxication manslaughter at the end of a weeklong trial, said Edward Sandoval, a Cameron County prosecutor. The sentencing phase of the trial was scheduled to begin later Friday. He faces up to 160 years in prison.
A shelter operator said victims struck by the vehicle had been waiting for the bus to return to downtown Brownsville after spending the night at the overnight shelter. Authorities said at the time that Alvarez tried to flee but was held down by several people at the scene.
The city bus stop is across the street from the shelter and is not marked. There was no bench, and people waiting there were sitting along the curb, Maldonado said. He said most of the victims were Venezuelan men.
“What we see in the video is that this SUV, a Range Rover, just ran the light that was about 100 feet away and just went through the people who were sitting there in the bus stop,” Shelter director Victor Maldonado said at the time. He said the SUV flipped after running up on the curb and continued moving for about 200 feet. Some people who were walking on the sidewalk about 30 feet away from the main group were also hit, Maldonado said.
Maldonado said the center had not received any threats before the crash, but they did afterward. “I’ve had a couple of people come by the gate and tell the security guard that the reason this happened was because of us,” Maldonado said.
Prosecutors said there was sufficient evidence pointing to Alvarez being intoxicated, the Brownsville Herald reported. Alvarez admitted to using cocaine but said he last used it several days before the crash, according to the newspaper.
Brownsville Police Chief Felix Sauceda said at the time of the crash that the SUV ran a red light, lost control, flipped on its side, and hit 18 people. Six people died at the scene and 12 people were critically injured. The victims were all male and several of them were from Venezuela. The center’s manager told CBS News that the shelter receives between 80 and 120 migrants per day.
One of the victims, Angel Carvacas, was waiting at the bus stop because he was on his way to reunite with his mother, his cousin Silbio told CBS News. Silbio witnessed the accident and said he saw Carvacas “on the ground.” “It was as if the world fell apart,” Silbio said. Carvacas and his mother were headed to New York to start their new lives in the U.S., according to Silbio. “He looked out a lot for his family,” Silbio said. “He worried a lot for his family.”
George Alvarez, 35, was found guilty of eight counts of intoxication manslaughter at the end of a weeklong trial. He was also convicted on 10 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced by a judge to serve 60 years in prison. “You’re never truly satisfied with whatever outcome you get, because eight people are still deceased and 10 got their lives changed forever. But I’m satisfied with the way things turned out,” Cameron County District Attorney Luis Sáenz said.
Following the verdict, Alvarez apologized to the families of the victims. “From the bottom of my heart, I’m really sorry,” he said. Alvarez admitted to having an addiction to cocaine since the age of 11 after he said his parents left him to be raised with a grandparent. Art Teniente, the prosecutor for the Cameron County District Attorney’s office, said he believed the accident was unintentional but that Alvarez’s drug addiction played a role in the fatal crash.
Defense attorneys argued Alvarez’s test results only found a trace of the drug but that he wasn’t intoxicated on the day his vehicle struck the crowd at the bus stop. He asked the jury to consider Alvarez’s six children and consider a sentence of either probation or the minimum two-year sentence for each count of intoxication manslaughter.
Ashley Flores, 33, was one of the jurors and said they didn’t reach the decision easily or quickly. “We really did try to give him the benefit of the doubt, but unfortunately we did believe he was intoxicated at the time based on the evidence,” Flores said.
Maria Rodriguez Sangroni lost her 18-year-old son, Cristian Jesus, in the accident. She said all she received from police after the accident was her son’s rosary beads and felt the 60-year sentence was fair and that justice was served. Sangroni did not accept Alvarez’s apology to the families. “He’ll have to pay a divine justice. From that, no one is safe, no one. This is a light punishment for what awaits him with God. He’ll have to be accountable to God,” Sangroni said.
Source: CBS/AP, Brownsville Herald
