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Hernandez / Camera Footage of Marches

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Hernandez: We had a meeting at the church. That was the day we had the big march on Big Spring. All the Berets were there, from El Paso, Houston, Fragas, from the Valley, Corpus, Lubbock, El Paso, everybody was there. I remember everyone turned around to look at the doors because the doors opened and three guys came in Ramon arroyos was one of them I had not met him yet, but he had a big top coat. He was like wrapped around in the top coat. And everybody was like- there was areal tension because we did not know what was going on and they had barely killed Lozoano. There was a lot of static. One of the constables had been beat up and he was claiming that the police had did it, and there was just panic. So the doors open, and these guys walk in with these topcoats, and everybody turns around and looks. He opens up his coat like that and everybody is like WOAH! He pulls a big camera and puts it up on his shoulder [laughs]. That moment stuck with me. He got that camera and started filming. He had the footage of all that happened, but that footage is, I don’t know. There was another here in Odessa. He already passed away, his name is Sammy Orias he had a 16mm camera. He had that camera, every time I saw him he had that camera. I went to visit him at his house several years ago, and he did not recognize me. Something had happened to him. He was under care because he could not remember anything, dementia or something. He passed away and I talked to his wife one time several years ago and asked about the camera. Sammy had told me that he was writing a book. He said, “I got some stuff, Nick. You cannot imagine what I have on those cameras. You were there at some of those places, most of them. You will be amazed.” But he never showed it to me. His wife told me that she has all that footage “you are welcomed to it if you get a camera and we can go through it so I can take the personal stuff out. You can have the rest of it.” But I never got around to it. I thought about doing the documentation because all that grew on me because of Ramon. All those ideas he had a journalist and stuff. I always liked that but it is not who I was. But I never got that film. It is probably still there in the closet somewhere. But that is a lot of history, a lot of history because that guy was everywhere. I saw him everywhere. Pero, that is how I got into the Berets over the years. Just fighting causes and getting involved with the community.

Interview Interview with Nick Hernandez
Subjects Police and Law Enforcement › Police Brutality
Chicano Power › Brown Berets
Tags Arroyos, Ramon
Lozano, Larry
Urias, Sammy
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Interview date 2016-07-08
Interview source CRBB Summer 2016
Interviewees Hernandez, Nick
Locations Dallas, TX
Houston, TX
El Paso, TX
Lubbock, TX
Corpus Christi, TX
Odessa, TX
Big Springs, TX
Duration 00:04:08
Citation "Camera Footage of Marches," 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/2997/camera-footage-of-marches, accessed March 28, 2024