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Hernandez / Meeting about Police Brutality

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Hernandez: But one day I was coming downtown, it must have been two in the morning, and I stopped right in front of the courthouse in my low rider. I was- the courthouse is right here on this side and I am coming this way- the courthouse is on my right side. There is an ambulance goes right in from of me to the courthouse, and I am thinking “You know what, these guys already killed somebody.” They killed somebody. They had already killed another guy. He used to live down the street from my house. They found him in the cell. This guy, he was a pachuco and he used to wear these little skinny belts. He used to wear orange belts with orange shoes all the time. They found him hanging from his belt. It had already been 10 maybe 15 years. I was a real youngster when that happened. I kept remember what Raul- I kept having like a flashback to what Raul had told me= “something is going to happen, you are going to have to show some leadership, man.” Sure enough I got up in the morning and they were announcing that somebody had died at the courthouse. I drove- I was living right here on University by the college apartments- I drove back to the south side and I went to my body shop. My body shop, by that time I had a different place and it was already called Aztlan body shop. So, we were identifying with the culture, Aztlan body shop. I called Raul up and told him what happened. “Hey man they killed Larry.” Larry Lozano was his name. I remember they had like four or five of us. We had that meeting right there in the Alan body shop. One of the guys who was there with us went on to be a constable. He is not a constable anymore, but he lives maybe 2 to 3 blocks from my house. He was Pecos, tambien. Big guy like Raul, same size, big, big guy. Big old mustache. He was not a constable then, but I remember he came to the meeting and he was, Raul was there, there was another guy. He is already passed away- I can see his face. I know him real well because he owned this place La Que Que. It was a night club. We used to have meetings and stuff there, you know. But we had that meeting and we talked about our duties and stuff we had to do. That Lozano case turned out to be one of the biggest thing that ever happened here in Odessa. That changed everything. So many people got involved with that. We were talking like senators, congressmen, state representatives- there were just so many people writing letters to the president and to the justice department. Lawyers. All the Berets came into Odessa. You know I had already met Herrera in Lubbock. We had already met him because Raul had told us about Herrera. We went out there, there was a tornado that hit Lubbock and Herrera was very active with all of that down there. They had their own thing going on over there. We traveled over there in our low riders and we- they were naming this park, or something. Zapata: Was it Aztlan Park? Hernández: I think so. They had a wall or something- a mural. So we went to that park in our low riders. There were no low riders in Lubbock back then. So we took our cars over there. There were not that many in Odessa either, just a few hand full of us. But we went there and we supported the Berets there and things like that.

Interview Interview with Nick Hernandez
Subjects Police and Law Enforcement › Latino/a Employment in Law Enforcement
Chicano Power › Brown Berets
Chicano Power › Aztlán
Social Justice in Art › Visual Art
Tags Aztlan Bodyshop
Lozano, Larry
Dallas Black Partnership
Guerrero, Raul
Pachuco
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Interview date 2016-07-08
Interview source CRBB Summer 2016
Interviewees Hernandez, Nick
Duration 00:04:53
Citation "Meeting about Police Brutality," from Nick Hernandez oral history interview with ,  July 08, 2016, Odessa, TX, Civil Rights in Black and Brown Interview Database, https://crbb.tcu.edu/clips/2992/meeting-about-police-brutality, accessed December 26, 2024